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THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO  •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA    •    SAN    FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &   CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •  BOMBAY  •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


PHILOSOPHY 

AND 

THE  SOCIAL  PROBLEM 


BY 

WILL  DURANT,   Ph.D. 

INSTEUCTOB   IN    PHILOSOPHY,   EXTENSION  TEACHING 
COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY 


TOV  /XfV  /3lOV 

7/  <f>vcri<i  Z8wk€,  To  8c  KaXws  £rjv  r)  ri^yrj. 

—  Unknown  Dramatic  Post. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1917 

All  rights  reserved 


QO-SS 


LIBRARY 
SCRIPTS,      |       STLIUTIOfi 

OF  OC>     O'oKAf  HY 

UMVE»SI  ry  OF  CALIFORNIA 

LA  JOLLA.   CALIFORNIA 


Copyright,  1917, 
By  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Sot  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  September,  1917. 

1 


NottoooB  $reas 

J.  8.  Cushing  Co.  —  Berwick  <fe  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


TO 

ALDEN  FREEMAN 


CONTENTS 


Intboduction 


PAGE 

1 


Part  I 

HISTORICAL  APPROACH 

CHAPTER   I 

THE  PRESENT  SIGNIFICANCE  OF 
THE   SOCRATIC   ETHIC 


I. 

History  as  rebarbarization 

5 

II. 

Philosophy  as  disintegrator 

6 

III. 

Individualism  in  Athens   . 

7 

IV. 

The  Sophists     .... 

9 

V. 

Intelligence  as  virtue 

12 

VI. 

The  meaning  of  virtue 

15 

VII. 

"Instinct"  and  "reason" 

23 

VIII. 

The  secularization  of  morals 

27 

IX. 

"Happiness"  and  "virtue" 

31 

X. 

The  Socratic  challenge 

33 

CHAPTER   II 

PLATO:    PHILOSOPHY  AS   POLITICS 

I. 

The  man  and  the  artist    ....       36 

II. 

How  to  solve  the  social  problem 

40 

III. 

On  making  philosopher-kings    . 

.       44 

IV. 

Dishonest  democracy 

.       52 

V. 

Culture  and  slavery 

.       55 

VI. 

Plasticity  and  order 

60 

VII. 

The  meaning  of  justice 

,       62 

VIII. 

The  future  of  Plato 

.       64 

vu 


Vlll 

CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   III 

FRANCIS   BACON   AND    THE    SOCIAL 

POSSIBILITIES    OF   SCIENCE 

PAGE 

I. 

From  Plato  to  Bacon        ....       67 

II. 

Character          ..... 

69 

III. 

The  expurgation  of  the  intellect 

70 

IV. 

Knowledge  is  power 

74 

V. 

The  socialization  of  science 

76 

VI. 

Science  and  Utopia 

79 

VII. 

Scholasticism  in  science    . 

81 

VIII. 

The  Asiatics  of  Europe     . 

85 

CHAPTER    IV 

SPINOZA   ON   THE   SOCIAL  PROBLEM 

I. 

Hobbes 90 

II. 

The  spirit  of  Spinoza 

91 

-  III. 

Political  ethics 

93 

-    IV. 

Is  man  a  political  animal? 

,       95 

V. 

What  the  social  problem  is 

98 

VI. 

Free  speech 

.     101 

VII. 

Virtue  as  power 

.     105 

VIII. 

Freedom  and  order 

.     108 

IX. 

Democracy  and  intelligence 

.     112 

X. 

The  legacy  of  Spinoza 

115 

CHAPTER   V 

NIETZSCHE 

I. 

From  Spinoza  to  Nietzsche       .         .         .117 

II. 

Biographical 

.     120 

III. 

Exposition 

1.  Morality  as  impotence 

2.  Democracy 

126 
.     126 
.     128 

CONTENTS 

IX 

PAGE 

3.  Feminism 

• 

131 

4.  Socialism  and  anarchism 

.         , 

133 

5.  Degeneration 

.         , 

138 

6.  Nihilism 

.         , 

141 

7.  The  will  to  power 

.         i 

143 

8.  The  superman 

. 

150 

9.  How  to  make  supermen 

.         . 

155 

10.  On  the  necessity  of  exploitation 

159 

11.  Aristocracy 

. 

162 

12.  Signs  of  ascent 

. 

165 

IV. 

Criticism           .... 

. 

172 

V. 

Nietzsche  replies 

.         . 

177 

VI. 

Conclusion        .... 

Part  II 

SUGGESTIONS 

CHAPTER  I 
SOLUTIONS  AND   DISSOL1 

.                           4 

JTIONS 

178 

I. 

The  problem 

,     185 

II. 

"Solutions"       . 

.     190 

1.  Feminism 

.     190 

2.  Socialism 

.     194 

3.  Eugenics 

.     198 

4.  Anarchism 

.     200 

5.  Individualism 

.     202 

6.  Individualism  again 

.     202 

III. 

Dissolutions 

CHAPTER   II 

.     205 

THE  RECONSTRUCTIVE  FUNCTION 
OF  PHILOSOPHY 

I.     Epistemologs 214 


CONTENTS 

PAGB 

II.     Philosophy  as  control        .         .         .'"'     .     218 
III.     Philosophy  as  mediator  between  science 

and  statesmanship         .        .        .    222 

CHAPTER  III 
ORGANIZED   INTELLIGENCE 


I. 

The  need           ..... 

227 

II. 

The  organization  of  intelligence 

230 

III. 

Information  as  panacea     .... 

234 

IV. 

Sex,  art,  and  play  in  social  reconstruction 

240 

V. 

Education 

CHAPTER   IV 
THE   READER  SPEAKS 

246 

I. 

The  democratization  of  aristocracy 

251 

II. 

The  professor  as  Buridan's  ass 

255 

III. 

Is  information  wanted  ?    . 

257 

IV. 

Finding  Maecenas      ..... 

261 

.     V. 

The  chance  of  philosophy 

264 

268 

PART  I 

HISTORICAL  APPROACH 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  THE 
SOCIAL  PROBLEM 

INTRODUCTION 

The  purpose  of  this  essay  is  to  show :  first, 
that  the  social  problem  has  been  the  basic  con- 
cern of  many  of  the  greater  philosophers  ;  second, 
that  an  approach  to  the  social  problem  through 
philosophy  is  the  first  condition  of  even  a  moder- 
ately successful  treatment  of  this  problem ;  and 
third,  that  an  approach  to  philosophy  through 
the  social  problem  is  indispensable  to  the  re- 
vitalization  of  philosophy. 

By  "philosophy"  we  shall  understand  a  study 
of  experience  as  a  whole,  or  of  a  portion  of  ex- 
perience in  relation  to  the  whole. 

By  the  "social  problem"  we  shall  understand, 
simply  and  very  broadly,  the  problem  of  reducing 
human  misery  by  modifying  social  institutions. 
It  is  a  problem  that,  ever  reshaping  itself,  eludes 
sharper  definition  ;  for  misery  is  related  to  desire, 
and  desire  is  personal  and  in  perpetual  flux : 
each  of  us  sees  the  problem  unsteadily  in  terms 
of  his  own  changing  aspirations.     It  is  an  un- 

B  1 


2  INTRODUCTION 

comfortably  complicated  problem,  of  course ;  and 
we  must  bear  in  mind  that  the  limit  of  our  in- 
tention here  is  to  consider  philosophy  as  an 
approach  to  the  problem,  and  the  problem  itself 
as  an  approach  to  philosophy.  We  are  propos- 
ing no  solutions. 

Let  us,  as  a  wholesome  measure  of  orientation, 
touch  some  of  the  mountain-peaks  in  philosophical 
history,  with  an  eye  for  the  social  interest  that 
lurks  in  every  metaphysical  maze.  "Aristotle," 
says  Professor  Woodbridge,  "set  treatise-writers 
the  fashion  of  beginning  each  treatise  by  review- 
ing previous  opinions  on  their  subject,  and  prov- 
ing them  all  wrong."  1  The  purpose  of  the  next 
five  chapters  will  be  rather  the  opposite :  we 
shall  see  if  some  supposedly  dead  philosophies  do 
not  admit  of  considerable  resuscitation.  Instead 
of  trying  to  show  that  Socrates,  Plato,  Bacon, 
Spinoza,  and  Nietzsche  were  quite  mistaken  in 
their  views  on  the  social  problem,  we  shall  try 
to  see  what  there  is  in  these  views  that  can  help 
us  to  understand  our  own  situation  to-day.  We 
shall  not  make  a  collection  of  systems  of  social 
philosophy ;  we  shall  not  lose  ourselves  in  the 
past  in  a  scholarly  effort  to  relate  each  philosophy 
to  its  social  and  political  environment ;  we  shall 
try  to  relate  these  philosophies  rather  to  our 
own  environment,  to  look  at  our  own  problems 

1  Class-lectures.  As  Bacon  has  it,  Aristotle,  after  the  Otto- 
man manner,  did  not  believe  that  he  could  rule  securely  unless 
he  first  put  all  his  brothers  to  death. 


INTRODUCTION  3 

successively  through  the  eyes  of  these  philosophers. 
Other  interpretations  of  these  men  we  shall  not 
so  much  contradict  as  seek  to  supplement. 

Each  of  our  historical  chapters,  then,  will  be 
not  so  much  a  review  as  a  preface  and  a  progres- 
sion. The  aim  will  be  neither  history  nor  criti- 
cism, but  a  kind  of  construction  by  proxy.  It  is  a 
method  that  has  its  defects :  it  will,  for  example, 
sacrifice  thoroughness  of  scholarship  to  present 
applicability,  and  will  necessitate  some  repetitious 
gathering  of  the  threads  when  we  come  later  to 
our  more  personal  purpose.  But  as  part  requital 
for  this,  we  shall  save  ourselves  from  considering 
the  past  except  as  it  is  really  present,  except  as 
it  is  alive  and  nourishingly  significant  to-day. 
And  from  each  study  we  shall  perhaps  make 
some  advance  towards  our  final  endeavor,  —  the 
mutual  elucidation  of  the  social  problem  and 
philosophy. 


CHAPTER  I 

THE     PRESENT     SIGNIFICANCE     OF    THE     SOCRATIC 

ETHIC 

I 

History  as  Rebarbarization 

History  is  a  process  of  rebarbarization.  A 
people  made  vigorous  by  arduous  physical  condi- 
tions of  life,  and  driven'  by  the  increasing  exigen- 
cies of  survival,  leaves  its  native  habitat,  moves 
down  upon  a  less  vigorous  people,  conquers, 
displaces,  or  absorbs  it.  Habits  of  resolution 
and  activity  developed  in  a  less  merciful  environ- 
ment now  rapidly  produce  an  economic  surplus; 
and  part  of  the  resources  so  accumulated  serve 
as  capital  in  a  campaign  of  imperialist  conquest. 
The  growing  surplus  generates  a  leisure  class, 
scornful  of  physical  activity  and  adept  in  the 
arts  of  luxury.  Leisure  begets  speculation; 
speculation  dissolves  dogma  and  corrodes  cus- 
tom, develops  sensitivity  of  perception  and 
destroys  decision  of  action.  Thought,  adven- 
turing in  a  labyrinth  of  analysis,  discovers  behind 
society  the  individual;  divested  of  its  normal 
social  function  it  turns  inward  and  discovers  the 

5 


6      PHILOSOPHY   AND    THE    SOCIAL    PROBLEM 

self.  The  sense  of  common  interest,  of  common- 
wealth, wanes;  there  are  no  citizens  now,  there 
are  only  individuals. 

From  afar  another  people,  struggling  against  the 
forces  of  an  obdurate  environment,  sees  here  the 
cleared  forests,  the  liberating  roads,  the  harvest  of 
plenty,  the  luxury  of  leisure.  It  dreams,  aspires, 
dares,  unites,  invades.     The  rest  is  as  before. 

Rebarbarization  is  rejuvenation.  The  great 
problem  of  any  civilization  is  how  to  rejuvenate 
itself  without  rebarbarization. 

II 

Philosophy  as  Disintegrator 

The  rise  of  philosophy,  then,  often  heralds 
the  decay  of  a  civilization.  Speculation  begins 
with  nature  and  begets  naturalism ;  it  passes 
to  man  —  first  as  a  psychological  mystery  and 
then  as  a  member  of  society  —  and  begets  indi- 
vidualism. Philosophers  do  not  always  desire 
these  results ;  but  they  achieve  them.  They 
feel  themselves  the  unwilling  enemies  of  the  state  : 
they  think  of  men  in  terms  of  personality  while 
the  state  thinks  of  men  in  terms  of  social  mechan- 
ism. Some  philosophers  would  gladly  hold  their 
peace,  but  there  is  that  in  them  which  will  out; 
and  when  philosophers  speak,  gods  and  dynasties 
fall.  Most  states  have  had  their  roots  in  heaven, 
and  have  paid  the  penalty  for  it :  the  twilight 
of  the  gods  is  the  afternoon  of  states. 


SIGNIFICANCE    OF   THE    SOCRATIC   ETHIC      7 

Every  civilization  comes  at  last  to  the  point 
where  the  individual,  made  by  speculation  con- 
scious of  himself  as  an  end  per  se,  demands  of 
the  state,  as  the  price  of  its  continuance,  that 
it  shall  henceforth  enhance  rather  than  exploit 
his  capacities.  Philosophers  sympathize  with 
this  demand,  the  state  almost  always  rejects 
it :  therefore  civilizations  come  and  civilizations 
go.  The  history  of  philosophy  is  essentially 
an  account  of  the  efforts  great  men  have  made 
to  avert  social  disintegration  by  building  up 
natural  moral  sanctions  to  take  the  place  of  the 
supernatural  sanctions  which  they  themselves 
have  destroyed.  To  find  —  without  resorting 
to  celestial  machinery  —  some  way  of  winning 
for  their  people  social  coherence  and  permanence 
without  sacrificing  plasticity  and  individual 
uniqueness  to  regimentation,  —  that  has  been 
the  task  of  philosophers,  that  is  the  task  of 
philosophers. 

We  should  be  thankful  that  it  is.  Who  knows 
but  that  within  our  own  time  may  come  at  last 
the  forging  of  an  effective  natural  ethic  ?  —  an 
achievement  which  might  be  the  most  momentous 
event  in  the  history  of  our  world. 

Ill 

Individualism  in  Athens 

The  great  ages  in  the  history  of  European 
thought  have  been  for  the  most  part  periods  of 


8      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PKOBLEM 

individualistic  effervescence  :  the  age  of  Socrates, 
the  age  of  Caesar  and  Augustus,  the  Renais- 
sance, the  Enlightenment ;  —  and  shall  we  add 
the  age  which  is  now  coming  to  a  close?  These 
ages  have  usually  been  preceded  by  periods  of 
imperialist  expansion :  imperialism  requires  a 
tightening  of  the  bonds  whereby  individual 
allegiance  to  the  state  is  made  secure ;  and  this 
tightening,  given  a  satiety  of  imperialism,  in- 
volves an  individualistic  reaction.  And  again, 
the  dissolution  of  the  political  or  economic  fron- 
tier by  conquest  or  commerce  breaks  down  cul- 
tural barriers  between  peoples,  develops  a  sense 
of  the  relativity  of  customs,  and  issues  in  the 
opposition:  of  individual  "reason"  to  social 
tradition. 

A  political  treatise  attributed  to  the  fourth 
century  b.c.  reflects  the  attitude  that  had  de- 
veloped in  Athens  in  the  later  fifth  century.  "If 
all  men  were  to  gather  in  a  heap  the  customs 
which  they  hold  to  be  good  and  noble,  and  if 
they  were  next  to  select  from  it  the  customs 
which  they  hold  to  be  base  and  vile,  nothing 
would  be  left  over."  1  Once  such  a  view  has 
found  capable  defenders,  the  custom-basis  of 
social  organization  begins  to  give  way,  and  insti- 
tutions venerable  with  age  are  ruthlessly  sub- 
poenaed to  appear  before  the  bar  of  reason.  Men 
begin  to  contrast  "Nature"  with  custom,  some- 

1  The  Dialexeis;   cf.  Gomperz,  Greek  Thinkers,  New  York, 
1901.  vol.  i,  p.  404. 


SIGNIFICANCE   OF   THE    SOCRATIC   ETHIC      9 

what  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  latter.  Even 
the  most  basic  of  Greek  institutions  is  questioned  : 
"The  Deity,"  says  a  fourth-century  Athenian 
Rousseau,  "made  all  men  free;  Nature  has 
enslaved  no  man."  l  Botsford  speaks  of  "the 
powerful  influence  of  fourth-century  socialism 
on  the  intellectual  class."  2  Euripides  and  Aris- 
tophanes are  full  of  talk  about  a  movement  for 
the  emancipation  of  women.3  Law  and  govern- 
ment are  examined :  Anarcharsis'  comparison  of 
the  law  to  a  spider's  web,  which  catches  small  flies 
and  lets  the  big  ones  escape,  now  finds  sympathetic 
comprehension ;  and  men  arise,  like  Callicles  and 
Thrasymachus,  who  frankly  consider  government 
as  a  convenient  instrument  of  mass-exploitation. 

IV 

The  Sophists 

The  cultural  representatives  of  this  individual- 
istic development  were  the  Sophists.  These  men 
were  university  professors  without  a  university 
and  without  the  professorial  title.  They  ap- 
peared in  response  to  a  demand  for  higher  instruc- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  young  men  of  the  leisure 
class ;  and  within  a  generation  they  became  the 
most  powerful  intellectual  force  in  Greece.  There 
had  been  philosophers,  questioners,  before  them; 

1  Gomperz,  vol.  i,  p.  403. 

2  Botsford  and  Sihler,  Hellenic  Civilization,  New  York, 
1915,  p.  430.  3  Ibid.,  p.  340,  etc. 


10      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

but  these  early  philosophers  had  questioned  na- 
ture rather  than  man  or  the  state.  The  Sophists 
were  the  first  group  of  men  in  Greece  to  overcome 
the  natural  tendency  to  acquiesce  in  the  given 
order  of  things.  They  were  proud  men,  —  hu- 
mility is  a  vice  that  never  found  root  in  Greece,  — 
and  they  had  a  buoyant  confidence  in  the  newly 
discovered  power  of  human  intelligence.  They 
assumed,  in  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  all  Greek 
achievement,  that  in  the  development  and  exten- 
sion of  knowledge  lay  the  road  to  a  sane  and  sig- 
nificant life,  individual  and  communal ;  and  in  the 
quest  for  knowledge  they  were  resolved  to  scruti- 
nize una  wed  all  institutions,  prejudices,  customs, 
morals.  Protagoras  professed  to  respect  conven- 
tions,1 and  pronounced  conventions  and  in- 
stitutions the  source  of  man's  superiority  to  the 
beast;  but  his  famous  principle,  that  "man  is 
the  measure  of  all  things,"  was  a  quiet  hint  that 
morals  are  a  matter  of  taste,  that  we  call  a  man 
"good"  when  his  conduct  is  advantageous  to  us, 
and  "bad"  when  his  conduct  threatens  to  make 
for  our  own  loss.  To  the  Sophists  virtue  consisted, 
not  in  obedience  to  un judged  rules  and  customs, 
but  in  the  efficient  performance  of  whatever  one 
set  out  to  do.  They  would  have  condemned  the 
bungler  and  let  the  "sinner"  go.  That  they  were 
flippant  sceptics,  putting  no  distinction  of  worth 

1  And  sincerely,  says  Burnet,  because  he  had  gone  through 
radicalism  to  scepticism,  and  felt  that  one  convention  was  as 
good  as  another. 


SIGNIFICANCE    OF   THE    SOCRATIC   ETHIC       11 

between  any  belief  and  its  opposite,  and  willing 
to  prove  anything  for  a  price,  is  an  old  accusation 
which  later  students  of  Greek  philosophy  are  al- 
most unanimous  in  rejecting.1 

The  great  discovery  of  the  Sophists  was  the 
individual;  it  was  an  achievement  for  which 
Plato  and  his  oligarchical  friends  could  not  for- 
give them,  and  because  of  which  they  incurred  the 
contumely  which  it  is  now  so  hard  to  dissociate 
from  their  name.  The  purpose  of  laws,  said  the 
Sophists,  was  to  widen  the  possibilities  of  individ- 
ual development ;  if  laws  did  not  do  that,  they 
had  better  be  forgotten.  There  was  a  higher  law 
than  the  laws  of  men,  —  a  natural  law,  engraved 
in  every  heart,  and  judge  of  every  other  law. 
The  conscience  of  the  individual  was  above  the 
dictates  of  any  state.  All  radicalisms  lay  com- 
pact in  that  pronouncement.  Plato,  prolific  of 
innovations  though  he  was,  yet  shrank  from  such 
a  leap  into  the  new.  But  the  Sophists  pressed 
their  point,  men  listened  to  them,  and  the 
Greek  world  changed.  When  Socrates  ap- 
peared, he  found  that  world  all  out  of  joint, 
a  war  of  all  against  all,  a  stridency  of  un- 
coordinated personalities  rushing  into  chaos. 
And  when  he  was  asked,  What  should  men 
do  to  be  saved,  he  answered,  simply,  Let  us 
think. 

1  Cf.  Henry  Jackson,  article  "Sophists,"  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica,  eleventh  edition. 


12      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 


Intelligence  as  Virtue 

Intelligence  as  virtue :  it  was  not  a  new  doc- 
trine ;  it  was  merely  a  new  emphasis  placed  on 
an  already  important  element  in  the  Greek  — 
or  rather  the  Athenian  —  view  of  life.  But  it 
was  a  needed  emphasis.  The  Sophists  (not 
Socrates,  pace  Cicero)  had  brought  philosophy 
down  from  heaven  to  earth,  but  they  had  left  it 
grovelling  at  the  feet  of  business  efficiency  and  suc- 
cess, a  sort  of  ancilla  pecunice,  a  broker  knowing 
where  one's  soul  could  be  invested  at  ten  per  cent. 
Socrates  agreed  with  the  Sophists  in  condemning 
any  but  a  very  temporary  devotion  to  metaphysi- 
cal abstractions,  —  the  one  and  the  many,  motion 
and  rest,  the  indivisibility  of  space,  the  puzzles 
of  predication,  and  so  forth  ;  he  joined  them  in  ridi- 
culing the  pursuit  of  knowledge  for  its  own  sake, 
and  in  demanding  that  all  thinking  should  be  fo- 
cussed  finally  on  the  real  concerns  of  life ;  but  his 
spirit  was  as  different  from  theirs  as  the  spirit 
of  Spinoza  was  different  from  that  of  a  mediaeval 
money-lender.  With  the  Sophists  philosophy  was 
a  profession;  they  were  "lovers  of  wisdom"  — 
for  a  consideration.  With  Socrates  philosophy 
was  a  quest  of  the  permanently  good,  of  the  last- 
ingly satisfying  attitude  to  life.  To  find  out  just 
what  are  justice,  temperance,  courage,  piety,  — 
"that  is  an  inquiry  which  I  shall  never  be  weary 
of  pursuing  so  far  as  in  me  lies."     It  was  not  an 


SIGNIFICANCE    OF   THE    SOCRATIC   ETHIC      13 

easy  quest ;  and  the  results  were  not  startlingly 
definite:  "I  wander  to  and  fro  when  I  attempt 
these  problems,  and  do  not  remain  consistent  with 
myself."  His  interlocutors  went  from  him  ap- 
parently empty;  but  he  had  left  in  them  seed 
which  developed  in  the  after-calm  of  thought. 
He  could  clarify  men's  notions,  he  could  reveal  to 
them  their  assumptions  and  prejudices;  but  he 
could  not  and  would  not  manufacture  opinions 
for  them.  He  left  no  written  philosophy  because 
he  had  only  the  most  general  advice  to  give,  and 
knew  that  no  other  advice  is  ever  taken.  He 
trusted  his  friends  to  pass  on  the  good  word. 

Now  what  was  the  good  word?  It  was,  first 
of  all,  the  identity  of  virtue  and  wisdom,  morals 
and  intelligence ;  but  more  than  that,  it  was  the 
basic  identity,  in  the  light  of  intelligence,  of 
communal  and  individual  interests.  Here  at  the 
Sophist's  feet  lay  the  debris  of  the  old  morality. 
What  was  to  replace  it  ?  The  young  Athenians  of 
a  generation  denuded  of  supernatural  belief  would 
not  listen  to  counsels  of  "virtue,"  of  self-sacrifice 
to  the  community.  What  was  to  be  done? 
Should  social  and  political  pressure  be  brought 
to  bear  upon  the  Sophists  to  compel  them  to 
modify  the  individualistic  tenor  of  their  teach- 
ings? Analysis  destroys  morals.  What  is  the 
moral  —  destroy  analysis  ? 

The  moral,  answered  Socrates,  is  to  get  better 
morals,  to  find  an  ethic  immune  to  the  attack  of 
the  most  ruthless  sceptic.     The  Sophists  were 


14      PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    PROBLEM 

right,  said  Socrates;  morality  means  more  than 
social  obedience.  But  the  Sophists  were  wrong 
in  opposing  the  good  of  the  individual  to  that  of 
the  community ;  Socrates  proposed  to  prove  that 
if  a  man  were  intelligent,  he  would  see  that  those 
same  qualities  which  make  a  man  a  good  citizen  — 
justice,  wisdom,  temperance,  courage — are  also 
the  best  means  to  individual  advantage  and 
development.  All  these  "virtues"  ar.e  simply 
the  supreme  and  only  virtue  —  wisdom  —  dif- 
ferentiated by  the  context  of  circumstance.  No 
action  is  virtuous  unless  it  is  an  intelligent  adapta- 
tion of  means  to  a  criticised  end.  "Sin"  is  fail- 
ure to  use  energy  to  the  best  account ;  it  is  an 
unintelligent  waste  of  strength.  A  man  does  not 
knowingly  pursue  anything  but  the  Good ;  let 
him  but  see  his  advantage,  and  he  will  be  at- 
tracted towards  it  irresistibly ;  let  him  pursue  it, 
and  he  will  be  happy,  and  the  state  safe.  The 
trouble  is  that  men  lack  perspective,  and  cannot 
see  their  true  Good;  they  need  not  "virtue"  but 
intelligence,  not  sermons  but  training  in  perspec- 
tive. The  man  who  has  ivKparaa,  who  rules 
within,  who  is  strong  enough  to  stop  and  think, 
the  man  who  has  achieved  voxfrpoavvq,  —  the  self- 
knowledge  that  brings  self-command,  —  such  a 
man  will  not  be  deceived  by  the  tragedy  of  dis- 
tance, by  the  apparent  smallness  of  the  future 
good  alongside  of  the  more  easily  appreciable  good 
that  lies  invitingly  at  hand.  Hence  the  moral 
importance  of  dialectic,  of  cross-examination,  of 


SIGNIFICANCE   OF   THE    SOCRATIC   ETHIC      15 

concept  and  definition:  we  must  learn  "how  to 
make  our  ideas  clear"  ;  we  must  ask  ourselves  just 
what  it  is  that  we  want,  just  how  real  this  seeming 
good  is.  Dialectic  is  the  handmaiden  of  virtue ; 
and  all  clarification  is  morality. 

VI 

The  Meaning  of  Virtue 

This  is  frank  intellectualism,  of  course ;  and  the 
best-refuted  doctrine  in  philosophy.  It  is  amusing 
to  observe  the  ease  with  which  critics  and  histo- 
rians despatch  the  Socratic  ethic.  It  is  "an  ex- 
travagant paradox,"  says  Sidgwick,1  "incompat- 
ible with  moral  freedom."  "Nothing  is  easier," 
says  Gomperz,2  "  than  to  detect  the  one-sided- 
ness  of  this  point  of  view."  "This  doctrine," 
says  Grote,3  "omits  to  notice,  what  is  not  less 
essential,  the  proper  conditions  of  the  emotions, 
desires,  etc."  "It  tended  to  make  all  conduct  a 
matter  of  the  intellect  and  not  of  the  character, 
and  so  in  a  sense  to  destroy  moral  responsibility," 
says  Hobhouse.4  "Himself  blessed  with  a  will 
so  powerful  that  it  moved  almost  without  friction," 
says  Henry  Jackson,5  "Socrates  fell  into  the  error 
of  ignoring  its  operations,  and  was  thus  led  to 

1  History  of  Ethics,  London,  1892,  p.  24. 

2  Op.  cit.,  vol.  ii,  1905,  p.  67. 

*  History  of  Greece,  vol.  viii,  p.  134. 

*  Morals  in  Evolution,  New  York,  1915,  p.  556. 

6  Henry  Jackson,  article  "Socrates,"  Encyclopaedia  Bri- 
tannica,  eleventh  edition. 


16      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL    PROBLEM 

regard  knowledge  as  the  sole  condition  of  well- 
doing." "Socrates  was  a  misunderstanding," 
says  Nietzsche ; l  "reason  at  any  price,  life  made 
clear,  cold,  cautious,  conscious,  without  instincts, 
opposed  to  the  instincts,  was  in  itself  only  a  dis- 
ease, .  .  .  and  by  no  means  a  return  to  '  virtue, ' 
to  'health,'  and  to  happiness."  And  the  worn- 
out  dictum  about  seeing  the  better  and  approving 
it,  yet  following  the  worse,  is  quoted  as  the  deliv- 
erance of  a  profound  psychologist,  whose  verdict 
should  be  accepted  as  a  final  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem. 

Before  refuting  a  doctrine  it  is  useful  to  try  to 
understand  it.  What  could  Socrates  have  meant 
by  saying  that  all  real  virtue  is  intelligence? 
What  is  virtue  ? 

A  civilization  may  be  characterized  in  terms  of 
its  conception  of  virtue.  There  is  hardly  any- 
thing more  distinctive  of  the  Greek  attitude,  as 
compared  with  our  own,  than  the  Greek  notion  of 

1  Twilight  of  the  Idols,  London,  1915,  p.  15.  For  Nietzsche's 
answer  to  Nietzsche,  cf.  ibid.,  p.  57:  "To  accustom  the  eye 
to  calmness,  to  patience,  and  to  allow  things  to  come  up  to 
it ;  to  defer  judgment,  and  to  acquire  the  habit  of  approaching 
and  grasping  an  individual  case  from  all  sides,  —  this  is  the 
first  preparatory  schooling  of  intellectuality,"  this  is  one  of 
"the  three  objects  for  which  we  need  educators.  .  .  .  One 
must  not  respond  immediately  to  a  stimulus ;  one  must  ac- 
quire a  command  of  the  obstructing  and  isolating  instincts. 
To  learn  to  see,  as  I  understand  this  matter,  amounts  almost 
to  that  which  in  popular  language  is  called  '  strength  of  will ' : 
its  essential  feature  is  precisely  ...  to  be  able  to  postpone 
one's  decision.  .  .  .  All  lack  of  intellectuality,  all  vulgarity, 
arises  out  of  the  inability  to  resist  a  stimulus." 


SIGNIFICANCE    OF   THE    SOCRATIC   ETHIC       17 

virtue  as  intelligence.  Consider  the  present  con- 
notations of  the  word  virtue:  men  shrink  at  hav- 
ing the  term  applied  to  them;  and  "nothing 
makes  one  so  vain,"  says  Oscar  Wilde,  "as  being 
told  that  one  is  a  sinner."  During  the  Middle 
Ages  the  official  conception  of  virtue  was  couched 
in  terms  of  womanly  excellence ;  and  the  sternly 
masculine  God  of  the  Hebrews  suffered  consider- 
ably from  the  inroads  of  Mariolatry.  Protes- 
tantism was  in  part  a  rebellion  of  the  ethically 
subjugated  male ;  in  Luther  the  man  emerges 
riotously  from  the  monk.  But  as  people  cling  to 
the  ethical  implications  of  a  creed  long  after  the 
creed  itself  has  been  abandoned,  so  our  modern 
notion  of  virtue  is  still  essentially  medieval  and 
feminine.  Virginity,  chastity,  conjugal  fidelity, 
gentility,  obedience,  loyalty,  kindness,  self-sacri- 
fice, are  the  stock-in-trade  of  all  respectable  moral- 
ists ;  to  be  "good"  is  to  be  harmless,  to  be  not 
"bad, "  to  be  a  sort  of  sterilized  citizen,  guaranteed 
not  to  injure.  This  sheepish  innocuousness  comes 
easily  to  the  natively  uninitiative,  to  those  who  are 
readily  amenable  to  fear  and  prohibitions.  It  is 
a  static  virtue  ;  it  contracts  rather  than  expands 
the  soul ;  it  offers  no  handle  for  development, 
no  incentive  to  social  stimulation  and  productiv- 
ity. It  is  time  we  stopped  calling  this  insipidly 
negative  attitude  by  the  once  mighty  name  of 
virtue.  Virtue  must  be  defined  in  terms  of  that 
which  is  vitally  significant  in  our  lives. 

And  therefore,  too,  virtue  cannot  be  defined  in 


4  5-3P 


18      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

terms  of  individual  subordination  to  the  group. 
The  vitally  significant  thing  in  a  man's  life  is  not 
the  community,  but  himself.  To  ask  him  to  con- 
sider the  interests  of  the  community  above  his 
own  is  again  to  put  up  for  his  worship  an  external, 
transcendent  god ;  and  the  trouble  with  a  tran- 
scendent god  is  that  he  is  sure  to  be  dethroned.  To 
call  "immoral"  the  refusal  of  the  individual  to 
meet  such  demands  is  the  depth  of  indecency ;  it 
is  itself  immoral,  —  that  is,  it  is  nonsense.  The 
notion  of  "duty"  as  involving  self-sacrifice,  as 
essentially  duty  to  others,  is  a  soul-cramping, 
funereal  notion,  and  deserves  all  that  Ibsen  and  his 
progeny  have  said  of  it.1  Ask  the  individual  to 
sacrifice  himself  to  the  community,  and  it  will 
not  be  long  before  he  sacrifices  the  community  to 
himself.  Granted  that,  in  the  language  of  Heracli- 
tus,  there  is  always  a  majority  of  fools,  and  that 
self-sacrifice  can  be  procured  by  the  simple  hyp- 
notic suggestion  of  post-mortem  remuneration : 
sooner  or  later  come  doubt  and  disillusionment, 
and  the  society  whose  permanence  was  so  easily 
secured  becomes  driftwood  on  the  tides  of  time. 
History  means  that  if  it  means  anything. 

No ;  the  intelligent  individual  will  give  alle- 
giance to  the  group  of  which  he  happens  to  find 
himself  a  member,  only  so  far  as  the  policies  of 
the  group  accord  with  his  own  criticised  desires. 

1  "Why  art  thou  sad?  Assuredly  thou  hast  performed 
some  sacred  duty?"  —  Bazarov  in  Turgenev's  Fathers  and 
Children,  1903,  p.  185. 


SIGNIFICANCE    OF   THE    SOCRATIC   ETHIC       19 

Whatever  allegiance  he  offers  will  be  to  those 
forces,  wherever  they  may  be,  which  in  his  judg- 
ment move  in  the  line  of  these  desires.  Even 
for  such  forces  he  will  not  sacrifice  himself,  — 
though  there  may  be  times  when  martyrdom  is  a 
luxury  for  which  life  itself  is  not  too  great  a  price. 
Since  these  forces  have  been  defined  in  terms  of 
his  own  judgment  and  desire,  conflict  between 
them  and  himself  can  come  only  when  his  behavior 
diverges  from  the  purposes  defined  and  resumed  in 
times  of  conscious  thought,  —  i.e.,  only  when  he 
ceases  to  adapt  means  to  his  ends,  ceases,  that  is, 
to  be  intelligent.  The  prime  moral  conflict  is 
not  between  the  individual  and  his  group,  but  be- 
tween the  partial  self  of  fragmentary  impulse  and 
the  coordinated  self  of  conscious  purpose.  There 
is  a  group  within  each  man  as  well  as  without : 
a  group  of  partial  selves  is  the  reality  behind  the 
figment  of  the  unitary  self.  Every  individual  is 
a  society,  every  person  is  a  crowd.  And  the  trage- 
dies of  the  moral  life  lie  not  in  the  war  of  each 
against  all,  but  in  the  restless  interplay  of  these 
partial  selves  behind  the  stage  of  action.  As  a 
man's  intelligence  grows  this  conflict  diminishes, 
for  both  means  and  ends,  both  behavior  and  pur- 
poses, are  being  continually  revised  and  redirected 
in  accordance  with  intelligence,  and  therefore  in 
convergence  towards  it.  Progressively  the  in- 
dividual achieves  unity,  and  through  unity,  per- 
sonality. Faith  in  himself  has  made  him  whole. 
The  ethical  problem,  so  far  as  it  is  the  purely 


20      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

individual  problem  of  attaining  to  coordinated 
personality,  is  solved. 

Moral  responsibility,  then,  —  whatever  social 
responsibility  may  be,  —  is  the  responsibility  of 
the  individual  to  himself.  The  social  is  not  nec- 
essarily the  moral  —  let  the  sociological  fact  be 
what  it  will.  The  unthinking  conformity  of  the 
"normal  social  life"  is,  just  because  it  is  unthink- 
ing, below  the  level  of  morality :  let  us  call  it 
sociality,  and  make  morality  the  prerogative  of 
the  really  thinking  animal.  In  any  society  so  con- 
stituted as  to  give  to  the  individual  an  increase 
in  powers  as  recompense  for  the  pruning  of  his 
liberties,  the  unsocial  will  be  immoral,  —  that  is, 
self-destructively  unreasonable  and  unintelligent ; 
but  even  in  such  a  society  the  moral  would  over- 
flow the  margins  of  the  social,  and  would  take 
definition  ultimately  from  the  congruity  of  the 
action  with  the  criticised  purposes  of  the  individ- 
ual self.  This  does  not  mean  that  all  ethics  lies 
compact  in  the  shibboleth,  "Be  yourself."  Those 
who  make  the  least  sparing  use  of  this  phrase  are 
too  apt  to  consider  it  an  excuse  for  lives  that  reek 
with  the  heat  of  passion  and  smack  of  insufficient 
evolution.  These  people  need  to  be  reminded  — 
all  the  more  forcibly  since  the  most  palatable  and 
up-to-date  philosophies  exalt  instinct  and  deride 
thought  —  that  one  cannot  be  thoroughly  one's 
self  except  by  deliberation  and  intelligence.  To 
act  indeliberately  is  not  to  be,  but  in  great  part  to 
cancel,  one's  self.     For  example,  the  vast  play  of 


SIGNIFICANCE    OF   THE    SOCRATIC   ETHIC      21 

direct  emotional  expression  is  almost  entirely  in- 
deliberate :  if  you  are  greatly  surprised,  your  lips 
part,  your  eyes  open  a  trifle  wider,  your  pulse 
quickens,  your  respiration  is  affected ;  and  if  I 
am  surprised,  though  you  be  as  different  from  me 
as  Hyperion  from  a  satyr,  my  respiration  will 
be  affected,  my  pulse  will  quicken,  my  eyes  will 
open  a  trifle  wider,  and  my  lips  will  part ;  —  my 
direct  reaction  will  be  essentially  the  same  as 
yours.  The  direct  expression  of  surprise  is  prac- 
tically the  same  in  all  the  higher  animals.  Dar- 
win's classical  description  of  the  expression  of 
fear  is  another  example ;  it  holds  for  every  normal 
human  being,  not  to  speak  of  lower  species.  So 
with  egotism,  jealousy,  anger,  and  a  thousand 
other  instinctive  reaction-complexes ;  they  are 
common  to  the  species,  and  when  we  so  react,  we 
are  expressing  not  our  individual  selves  so  much 
as  the  species  to  which  we  happen  to  belong. 
When  you  hit  a  man  because  he  has  "insulted" 
you,  when  you  swagger  a  little  after  delivering  a 
successful  speech,  when  you  push  aside  women 
and  children  in  order  to  take  their  place  in  the 
rescue  boat,  when  you  do  any  one  of  a  million 
indeliberate  things  like  these,  it  is  not  you  that 
act,  it  is  your  species,  it  is  your  ancestors,  acting 
through  you ;  your  acquired  individual  differ- 
ence is  lost  in  the  whirlwind  of  inherited  impulse. 
Your  act,  as  the  Scholastics  phrased  it,  is  not  a 
"human"  act ;  you  yourself  are  not  really  acting 
in  any  full  measure  of  yourself,  you  are  but  play- 


22       PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    PROBLEM 

ing  slave  and  mouth-piece  to  the  dead.  But  sub- 
ject the  inherited  tendencies  to  the  scrutiny  of 
your  individual  experience,  think,  and  your  action 
will  then  express  yourself,  not  in  any  abbreviated 
sense,  but  up  to  the  hilt.  There  is  no  merit,  no 
"virtue,"  no  development  in  playing  the  game  of 
fragmentary  impulses,  in  living  up  to  the  past ; 
to  be  moral,  to  grow,  is  to  be  not  part  but  all  of 
one's  self,  to  call  into  operation  the  acquired  as 
well  as  the  inherited  elements  of  one's  character, 
to  be  whole.  So  many  of  us  invite  ruin  by  actions 
which  do  not  really  express  us,  but  are  the  voice 
of  the  merest  fragment  of  ourselves,  —  the  re- 
mainder of  us  being  meanwhile  asleep.1  To  be 
whole,  to  be  your  deliberate  self,  to  do  what  you 
please  but  only  after  considering  what  you  really 
please,  to  follow  your  own  ideals  (but  to  follow 
them  !),  to  choose  your  own  means  and  not  to  have 
them  forced  upon  you  by  your  ancestors,  to  act 
consciously,  to  see  the  part  sub  specie  totius,  to 
see  the  present  act  in  its  relation  to  your  vital 
purposes,  to  think,  to  be  intelligent,  —  all  these 
are  definitions  of  virtue  and  morality. 

There  is,  then,  in  the  old  sense  of  the  word,  no 
such  thing  as  morality,  there  is  only  intelligence 
or  stupidity.  Yes,  virtue  is  calculus,  horrible  as 
that  may  sound  to  long  and  timid  ears  :  to  calcu- 

1  "  Morality  is  the  effort  to  throw  off  sleep.  ...  I  have 
never  yet  met  a  man  who  was  wide  awake.  How  could  I 
have  looked  him  in  the  face?"  —  Thoreau,  Walden,  New 
York,  1899,  p.  92. 


SIGNIFICANCE    OF   THE    SOCRATIC   ETHIC      23 

late  properly  just  what  you  must  do  to  attain 
your  real  ends,  to  see  just  what  and  where  your 
good  is,  and  to  make  for  it,  —  that  is  all  that  can 
without  indecency  be  asked  of  any  man,  that  is 
all  that  is  ever  vouchsafed  by  any  man  who  is 
intelligent. 

Perhaps  you  think  it  is  an  easy  virtue,  —  this 
cleaving  to  intelligence,  —  easier  than  being  harm- 
less.    Try  it. 

VII 

"  Instinct  "  and  "  Reason  " 

And  now  to  go  back  to  the  refutations. 

The  strongest  objection  to  the  Socratic  doctrine 
is  that  intelligence  is  not  a  creator,  but  only  a 
servant,  of  ends.  What  we  shall  consider  to  be 
our  good  appears  to  be  determined  not  by  reason, 
but  by  desire.  Reason  itself  seems  but  the  valet 
of  desire,  ready  to  do  for  it  every  manner  of  menial 
service.  Desire  is  an  adept  at  marshalling  before 
intelligence  such  facts  as  favor  the  wish,  and 
turns  the  mind's  eye  resolutely  away  from  other 
truth,  as  a  magician  distracts  the  attention  of  his 
audience  while  his  hands  perform  their  wonders. 
If  morality  is  entirely  a  matter  of  intelligence,  it  is 
entirely  a  question  of  means,  it  is  excluded  ir- 
revocably from  the  realm  of  ends. 

The  conclusion  may  be  allowed  in  substance, 
though  it  passes  beyond  the  warrant  of  the  facts. 
It  is  true  that  basic  ends  are  never  suggested  by 
intelligence,  reason,  knowledge  ;  but  it  is  also  true 


24      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

that  many  ends  suggested  by  desire  are  vetoed 
by  intelligence.  Why  are  the  desires  of  a  man 
more  modest  than  those  of  a  boy  or  a  child,  if  not 
because  the  blows  of  repeated  failure  have  dulled 
the  edge  of  desire  ?  Desires  lapse,  or  lose  in  stat- 
ure, as  knowledge  grows  and  man  takes  lessons 
from  reality.  There  is  an  adaptation  of  ends  to 
means  as  well  as  of  means  to  ends ;  and  desire 
comes  at  last  to  take  counsel  of  its  slave. 

Be  it  granted,  none  the  less,  that  ends  are  dic- 
tated by  desire,  and  that  if  morality  is  intelligence, 
there  can  be  no  question  of  the  morality  of  any 
end  per  se.  That,  strangely,  is  not  a  refutation 
of  the  Socratic  ethic  so  much  as  an  essential  ele- 
ment of  it  and  its  starting-point.  Every  desire 
has  its  own  initial  right ;  morality  means  not  the 
suppression  of  desires,  but  their  coordination. 
What  that  implies  for  society  we  shall  see  pres- 
ently ;  for  the  individual  it  implies  that  he  is 
immoral,  not  when  he  seeks  his  own  advantage, 
but  when  he  does  not  really  behave  for  his  own 
advantage,  when  some  narrow  temporary  pur- 
pose upsets  perspective  and  overrides  a  larger 
end.1     What  we  call  "self-control"  is  the  perma- 

1  What  happens  when  I  "see  the  better  and  approve  it, 
but  follow  the  worse,"  is  that  an  end  later  approved  as  "bet- 
ter"—  i.e.,  better  for  me  —  is  at  the  time  obscured  by  the 
persistent  or  recurrent  suggestion  of  an  end  temporarily  more 
satisfying,  but  eventually  disappointing.  Most  self-reproach 
is  the  use  of  knowledge  won  post  factum  to  criticise  a  self  that 
had  to  adventure  into  action  unarmed  with  this  hindsight 
wisdom. 


SIGNIFICANCE    OF   THE    SOCRATIC   ETHIC      25 

nent  predominance  of  the  larger  end ;  what  we 
call  weakness  of  will  is  instability  of  perspective. 
Self-control  means  an  intelligent  judgment  of 
values,  an  intelligent  coordination  of  motives, 
an  intelligent  forecasting  of  effects.  It  is  far- 
sight, :.far-hearing,  an  enlargement  of  the  sense ; 
it  hears  the  weakened  voice  of  the  admonishing 
past,  it  sees  results  far  down  the  vista  of  the 
future ;  it  annihilates  space  and  time  for  the  sake 
of  light.  Self-control  is  coordinated  energy,  — 
which  is  the  first  and  last  word  in  ethics  and  poli- 
tics, and  perhaps  in  logic  and  metaphysics  too. 
Weak  will  means  that  desires  fall  out  of  focus, 
and  taking  advantage  of  the  dark  steal  into 
action :  it  is  a  derangement  of  the  light,  a  fail- 
ure of  intelligence.  In  this  sense  a  "good  will" 
means  coordination  of  desires  by  the  ultimate 
desire,  end,  ideal ;  it  means  health  and  wholeness 
of  will ;  it  means,  literally,  integrity.  In  the  old 
sense  "good  will"  meant,  too  often,  mere  fear 
either  of  the  prohibitions  of  present  law  or  of  the 
prohibitions  stored  up  in  conscience.  Such  con- 
science, we  all  know,  is  a  purely  negative  and 
static  thing,  a  convenient  substitute  for  police- 
men, a  degenerate  descendant  of  that  conscientia, 
or  knowing-together,  which  meant  to  the  Romans 
a  discriminating  awareness  in  action,  —  discrimi- 
nating awareness  of  the  whole  that  lurks  round 
the  corner  of  every  part.  This  is  one  instance  of 
a  sort  of  pathology  of  words,  —  words  coming  to 
function  in  a  sense  alien  to  their  normal  intent. 


26      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

Right  and  wrong,  for  example,  once  carried  no  ethi- 
cal connotation,  but  merely  denoted  a  direct  or 
tortuous  route  to  a  goal ;  and  significantly  the 
Hebrew  word  for  sin  meant,  in  the  days  of  its 
health,  an  arrow  that  had  missed  its  mark. 

But,  it  is  urged,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  intelli- 
gence in  the  sense  of  a  control  of  passion  by  reason, 
desire  by  thought.  Granted  ;  it  is  so  much  easier 
to  admit  objections  than  to  refute  them  !  Let  in- 
telligence be  interpreted  as  you  will,  so  be  it  you 
recognize  in  it  a  delayed  response,  a  moment  of 
reprieve  before  execution,  giving  time  for  the  ap- 
pearance of  new  impulses,  motives,  tendencies, 
and  allowing  each  element  in  the  situation  to  fall 
into  its  place  in  a  coordinated  whole.  Let  intelli- 
gence be  a  struggle  of  impulses,  a  survival  of  the 
fittest  desire  ;  let  us  contrast  not  reason  with  pas- 
sion, but  response  delayed  by  the  rich  interplay 
of  motive  forces,  with  response  immediately  fol- 
lowing upon  the  first-appearing  impulse.  Let  im- 
pulse mean  for  us  fruit  that  falls  unripe  from  the 
tree,  because  too  weak  to  hang  till  it  is  mature. 
Let  us  understand  intelligence  as  not  a  faculty 
superadded  to  impulse,  but  rather  that  coordina- 
tion of  impulses  which  is  wrought  out  by  the  blows 
of  hard  experience.  The  Socratic  ethic  fits  quite 
comfortably  into  this  scheme ;  intelligence  is  de- 
layed response,  and  morality  means,  Take  your 
time. 

It  is  charged  that  the  Socratic  view  involves 
determinism  ;  and  this  charge,  too,  is  best  met  with 


SIGNIFICANCE    OF   THE    SOCRATIC   ETHIC      27 

open-armed  admission.  We  need  not  raise  the 
question  of  the  pragmatic  value  of  the  problem. 
But  to  suppose  that  determinism  destroys  moral 
responsibility  is  to  betray  the  mid-Victorian  origin 
of  one's  philosophy.  Men  of  insight  like  Socrates, 
Plato,  and  Spinoza,  saw  without  the  necessity  of 
argument  that  moral  responsibility  is  not  a  matter 
of  freedom  of  will,  but  a  relation  of  means  to  ends, 
a  responsibility  of  the  agent  to  himself,  an  intelli- 
gent coordination  of  impulses  by  one's  ultimate 
purposes.  Any  other  morality,  whatever  pretty 
name  it  may  display,  is  the  emasculated  morality 
of  slaves. 

VIII 

The  Secularization  of  Morals 

The  great  problem  involved  in  the  Socratic 
ethic  lies,  apparently,  in  the  bearings  of  the  doc- 
trine on  social  unity  and  stability.  Apparently ; 
for  it  is  wholesome  to  remember  that  social  organ- 
ization, like  the  Sabbath,  was  made  for  man,  and 
not  the  other  way  about.  If  social  organization 
demands  of  the  individual  more  sacrifices  than  its 
advantages  are  worth  to  him,  then  the  stability  of 
that  organization  is  not  a  problem,  it  is  a  misfor- 
tune. But  if  the  state  does  not  demand  such 
sacrifices,  the  advantage  of  the  individual  will  be 
in  social  behavior ;  and  the  question  whether  he 
will  behave  socially  becomes  a  question  of  how 
much  intelligence  he  has,  how  clear-eyed  he  is 
in  ferreting  out  his  own  advantage.     In  a  state 


28      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

that  does  not  ask  more  from  its  members  than  it 
gives,  morality  and  intelligence  and  social  behavior 
will  not  quarrel.  The  social  problem  appears  here 
as  the  twofold  problem  of,  first,  making  men  in- 
telligent, and,  second,  making  social  organization 
so  great  an  advantage  to  the  individual  as  to  in- 
sure social  behavior  in  all  intelligent  men. 

Which  has  the  better  chance  of  survival :  —  a 
society  of  "good"  men  or  a  society  of  intelligent 
men  ?  So  far  as  a  man  is  "  good ' '  he  merely  obeys, 
he  does  not  initiate.  A  society  of  "good"  men  is 
necessarily  stagnant ;  for  in  such  a  society  the  vir- 
tue most  in  demand,  as  Emerson  puts  it,  is  con- 
formity. If  great  men  emerge  through  the  icy 
crust  of  this  conformity,  they  are  called  criminals 
and  sinners ;  the  lives  of  great  men  all  remind  us 
that  we  cannot  make  our  lives  sublime  and  yet 
be  "good."  But  intelligence  as  an  ethical  ideal 
is  a  progressive  norm ;  for  it  implies  the  progres- 
sive coordination  of  one's  life  in  reference  to  one's 
ultimate  ideals.  The  god  of  the  "good"  man  is 
the  status  quo;  the  intelligent  man  obeys  rather 
the  call  of  the  status  ad  quern. 

Observe  how  the  problem  of  man  versus  the 
group  is  clarified  by  thus  relating  the  individual 
to  a  larger  whole  determined  not  by  geographical 
frontiers,  but  by  purposes  born  of  his  own  needs 
and  moulded  by  his  own  intelligence.  For  as  the 
individual's  intelligence  grows,  his  purposes  are 
brought  more  and  more  within  the  limits  of  per- 
sonal capacity  and  social  possibility  :  he  is  ever  less 


SIGNIFICANCE    OF   THE    SOCRATIC   ETHIC      29 

inclined  to  make  unreasonable  demands  upon  him- 
self, or  men  in  general,  or  the  group  in  which  he 
lives.  His  ever  broadening  vision  makes  appar- 
ent the  inherent  self-destructiveness  of  anti-social 
aims ;  and  though  he  chooses  his  ends  without 
reference  to  any  external  moral  code,  those  ends 
are  increasingly  social.  Enlightenment  saves  his 
social  dispositions  from  grovelling  conformity,  and 
his  "  self  -regarding  sentiments"  from  suicidal  nar- 
rowness. And  now  the  conflict  between  himself 
and  his  group  continues  for  the  most  part  only  in 
so  far  as  the  group  makes  unreasonable  demands 
upon  him.  But  this,  too,  diminishes  as  the  indi- 
viduals constituting  or  dominating  the  group  be- 
come themselves  more  intelligent,  more  keenly 
cognizant  of  the  limits  within  which  the  demands 
of  the  group  upon  its  members  must  be  restricted 
if  individual  allegiance  is  to  be  retained.  Since 
the  reduction  of  the  conflict  between  the  individ- 
ual and  the  community  without  detriment  to  the 
interests  of  either  is  the  central  problem  of  polit- 
ical ethics,  it  is  obvious  that  the  practical  task 
of  ethics  is  not  to  formulate  a  specific  moral  code, 
but  to  bring  about  a  spread  of  intelligence.  And 
since  the  reduction  of  this  conflict  brings  with  it 
a  better  coordination  of  the  members  of  the  group, 
through  their  greater  ability  to  perceive  the  ad- 
vantages of  communal  action  in  an  intelligently 
administered  group,  the  problem  of  social  cohe- 
rence and  permanence  itself  falls  into  the  same 
larger  problem  of  intellectual  development. 


30      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

"How  to  make  our  ideas  clear";  —  what  if 
that  be  the  social  problem?  What  a  wealth  of 
import  in  that  little  phrase  of  Socrates,  — to  tl; 

—  "  what  is  it  ?  "  What  is  my  good,  my  interest  ? 
What  do  I  really  want  ?  —  To  find  the  answer  to 
that,  said  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  is  to  achieve 
wisdom  and  old  age.  What  is  my  country? 
What  is  patriotism?  "If  you  wish  to  converse 
with  me,"  said  Voltaire,  "you  must  define  your 
terms."  If  you  wish  to  be  moral,  you  must  define 
your  terms.  If  our  civilization  is  to  keep  its  head 
above  the  flux  of  time,  we  must  define  our  terms. 

For  these  are  the  critical  days  of  the  seculari- 
zation of  moral  sanctions ;  the  theological  navel- 
string  binding  men  to  "good  behavior"  has 
snapped.  What  are  the  leaders  of  men  going  to 
do  about  it?  Will  they  try  again  the  old  gospel 
of  self-sacrifice?  But  a  world  fed  on  self-sacrifice 
is  a  world  of  lies,  a  world  choking  with  the  stench 
of  hypocrisy.  To  preach  self-sacrifice  is  not  to 
solve,  it  is  precisely  to  shirk,  the  problem  of  ethics, 

—  the  problem  of  eliminating  individual  self-sac- 
rifice while  preserving  social  stability :  the  prob- 
lem of  reconciling  the  individual  as  such  with  the 
individual  as  citizen.  Or  will  our  leaders  try  to 
replace  superstition  with  an  extended  physical 
compulsion,  making  the  policeman  and  the  prison 
do  all  the  work  of  social  coordination?  But 
surely  compulsion  is  a  last  resort ;  not  because  it 
is  "wrong,"  but  because  it  is  inexpedient,  because 
it  rather  cuts  than  unties  the  knot,  because  it  pro- 


SIGNIFICANCE    OF   THE    SOCRATIC   ETHIC      31 

duces  too  much  friction  to  allow  of  movement. 
Compulsion  is  warranted  when  there  is  question 
of  preventing  the  interference  of  one  individual  or 
group  with  another ;  but  it  is  a  poor  instrument 
for  the  establishment  or  maintenance  of  ideals. 
Suppose  we  stop  moralizing,  suppose  we  reduce 
regimentation,  suppose  we  begin  to  define  our 
terms.  Suppose  we  let  people  know  quite  simply 
(and  not  in  Academese)  that  moral  codes  are  born 
not  in  heaven  but  in  social  needs  ;  and  suppose  we 
set  about  finding  a  way  of  spreading  intelligence 
so  that  individual  treachery  to  real  communal 
interest,  and  communal  exploitation  of  individual 
allegiance,  may  both  appear  on  the  surface,  as 
they  are  at  bottom,  unintelligently  suicidal.  Is 
that  too  much  to  hope  for?  Perhaps.  But  then 
again,  it  may  be,  the  worth  and  meaning  of  life 
lie  precisely  in  this,  that  there  is  still  a  possibility 
of  organizing  that  experiment. 

IX 

"  Happiness  "  and  "  Virtue  " 

A  word  now  about  the  last  part  of  the  Socratic 
formula  :  intelligence  =  virtue  =  happiness .  And 
this  a  word  of  warning :  remember  that  the  "  vir- 
tue" here  spoken  of  is  not  the  mediaeval  virtue 
taught  in  Sunday  schools.  Surely  our  children 
must  wonder  are  we  fools  or  liars  when  we  tell 
them,  "Be  good  and  you  will  be  happy."  Better 
forget  "virtue"  and  read  simply:    intelligence  = 


32      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

happiness.  That  appears  more  closely  akin  to 
the  rough  realities  of  life  :  intelligence  means  abil- 
ity to  adapt  means  to  ends,  and  happiness  means 
success  in  adapting  means  to  ends ;  happiness, 
then,  varies  with  ability.  Happiness  is  intelli- 
gence on  the  move ;  a  pervasive  physiological 
tonus  accompanying  the  forward  movement  of 
achievement.  It  is  not  the  consciousness  of  vir- 
tue :  that  is  not  happiness,  but  snobbery.  And 
similarly,  remorse  is,  in  the  intelligent  man,  not 
the  consciousness  of  "sin,"  but  the  consciousness 
of  a  past  stupidity.  So  far  as  you  fail  to  win 
your  real  ends  you  are  unhappy,  —  and  have 
proved  unintelligent.  But  the  Preacher  says,  "He 
that  increaseth  knowledge  increaseth  sorrow." 
True  enough  if  the  increment  of  knowledge  is  the 
correction  of  a  past  error ;  the  sorrow  is  a  penalty 
paid  for  the  error,  not  for  the  increase  of  knowledge. 
True,  too,  that  intelligence  does  not  consistently 
lessen  conflicts,  and  that  it  discloses  a  new  want 
for  every  want  it  helps  to  meet.  But  the  joy  of 
life  lies  not  so  much  in  the  disappearance  of  diffi- 
culties as  in  the  overcoming  of  them  ;  not  so  much 
in  the  diminution  of  conflict  as  in  the  growth  of 
achievement.  Surely  it  is  time  we  had  an  ethic 
that  stressed  achievement  rather  than  quiescence. 
And  further,  intelligence  must  not  be  thought  of 
as  the  resignation  of  disillusionment,  the  con- 
sciousness of  impotence ;  intelligence  is  to  be  con- 
ceived of  in  terms  of  adaptive  activity,  of 
movement  towards  an  end,  of  coordinated  self- 


SIGNIFICANCE    OF   THE    SOCRATIC   ETHIC      33 

expression  and  behavior.  Finally,  it  is  but  fair  to 
interpret  the  formula  as  making  happiness  and  in- 
telligence coincide  only  so  far  as  the  individual's 
happiness  depends  on  his  own  conduct.  The 
causes  of  unhappiness  may  be  an  inherited  de- 
formity, or  an  accident  not  admitting  of  provision  ; 
such  cases  do  not  so  much  contradict  as  lie  out- 
side the  formula.  So  far  as  your  happiness  de- 
pends on  your  activities,  it  will  vary  with  the  de- 
gree of  intelligence  you  show.  Act  intelligently, 
and  you  will  not  know  regret ;  feel  that  you  are 
moving  on  toward  your  larger  ends,  and  you  will 
be  happy. 

X 

The  Socratic  Challenge 

But  if  individual  and  social  health  and  happi- 
ness depend  on  intelligence  rather  than  on  "vir- 
tue," and  if  the  exaltation  of  intelligence  was  a 
cardinal  element  in  the  Athenian  view  of  life, 
why  did  the  Socratic  ethic  fail  to  save  Athens 
from  decay?  And  why  did  the  supposedly  in- 
telligent Athenians  hail  this  generous  old  Dr. 
Johnson  of  philosophy  into  court  and  sentence 
him  to  death  ? 

The  answer  is,  Because  the  Athenians  refused 
to  make  the  Socratic  experiment.  They  were  in- 
telligent, but  not  intelligent  enough.  They  could 
diagnose  the  social  malady,  could  trace  it  to  the 
decay  of  supernatural   moral  norms ;    but  they 


34      PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    PROBLEM 

could  not  find  a  cure,  they  had  not  the  vision  to 
see  that  salvation  lay  not  in  the  compulsory 
retention  of  old  norms,  but  in  the  forging  of  new 
and  better  ones,  capable  of  withstanding  the  shock 
of  questioning  and  trial.  What  they  saw  was 
chaos ;  and  like  most  statesmen  they  longed  above 
all  things  for  order.  They  were  not  impressed 
by  Socrates'  allegiance  to  law,  his  cordial  admis- 
sion of  the  individual's  obligations  to  the  commu- 
nity for  the  advantages  of  social  organization. 
They  listened  to  the  disciples :  to  Antisthenes, 
who  laughed  at  patriotism ;  to  Aristippus,  who 
denounced  all  government ;  to  Plato,  scorner  of 
democracy ;  and  they  attacked  the  master  because 
(not  to  speak  of  pettier  political  reasons)  it  was  he, 
they  thought,  who  was  the  root  of  the  evil.  They 
could  not  see  that  this  man  was  their  ally  and  not 
their  foe ;  that  rescue  for  Athens  lay  in  helping 
him  rather  than  in  sentencing  him  to  die.  And 
how  well  they  could  have  helped  him !  For  to 
preach  intelligence  is  not  enough ;  there  remains 
to  provide  for  every  one  the  instrumentalities 
of  intelligence.  What  men  needed,  what  Athe- 
nian statesmanship  might  have  provided,  was  an 
organization  of  intelligence  for  intelligence,  an 
organization  of  all  the  forces  of  intelligence  in  the 
state  in  a  persistent  intellectual  campaign.  If  that 
could  not  save  Athens,  Athens  could  not  be  saved. 
But  the  myopic  leaders  of  the  Athenian  state  could 
not  see  salvation  in  intelligence,  they  could  only 
see  it  in  hemlock.     And  Socrates  had  to  die. 


SIGNIFICANCE    OF   THE    SOCRATIC   ETHIC      35 

It  will  take  a  wise  courage  to  accept  the  Socratic 
challenge,  —  such  courage  as  battle-fields  and 
senate-chambers  are  not  wont  to  show.  But  un- 
less that  wise  courage  comes  to  us  our  civilization 
will  go  as  other  civilizations  have  come  and  gone, 
"kindled  and  put  out  like  a  flame  in  the  night." 

Note.  —  From  a  book  whose  interesting  defence  of 
the  Socratic  ethic  from  the  standpoint  of  psychoanalysis 
was  brought  to  the  writer's  attention  after  the  comple- 
tion of  the  foregoing  essay:  "The  Freudian  ethics  is 
a  literal  and  concrete  justification  of  the  Socratic  teach- 
ing. Truth  is  the  sole  moral  sanction,  and  discrimina- 
tion of  hitherto  unrealized  facts  is  the  one  way  out  of 
every  moral  dilemma.  .  .  .  Virtue  is  wisdom."  Prac- 
tical morality  is  "the  establishment,  through  discrimi- 
nation, of  consistent,  and  not  contradictory  (mutually 
suppressive),  courses  of  action  toward  phenomena. 
The  moral  sanction  lies  always  in  facts  presented  by  the 
phenomena ;  morality  in  the  discrimination  of  those 
facts."  Moral  development  is  "the  progressive,  life- 
long integration  of  experience."  —  The  Freudian  Wish 
and  Its  Place  in  Ethics,  by  Edwin  B.  Holt,  New  York, 
1915,  pp.  141,  145,  148. 


CHAPTER  II 

PLATO  I    PHILOSOPHY   AS    POLITICS 

I 

The  Man  and  the  Artist 

Why  do  we  love  Plato  ?  Perhaps  because  Plato 
himself  was  a  lover :  lover  of  comrades,  lover 
of  the  sweet  intoxication  of  dialectical  revelry, 
full  of  passion  for  the  elusive  reality  behind 
thoughts  and  things.  We  love  him  for  his  un- 
stinted energy,  for  the  wildly  nomadic  play  of 
his  fancy,  for  the  joy  which  he  found  in  life  in  all 
its  unredeemed  and  adventurous  complexity. 
We  love  him  because  he  was  alive  every  minute 
of  his  life,  and  never  ceased  to  grow ;  such  a  man 
can  be  loved  even  for  the  errors  he  has  made. 
But  above  all  we  love  him  because  of  his  high 
passion  for  social  reconstruction  through  intel- 
ligent control ;  because  he  retained  throughout 
his  eighty  years  that  zeal  for  human  improvement 
which  is  for  most  of  us  the  passing  luxury  of 
youth ;  because  he  conceived  philosophy  as  an 
instrument  not  merely  for  the  interpretation,  but 
for  the  remoulding,  of  the  world.  He  speaks  of 
himself,  through  Socrates,  as  "  almost  the  only 

36 


PLATO  :  PHILOSOPHY  AS  POLITICS    37 

Athenian  living  who  sets  his  hand  to  the  true  art 
of  pohtics ;  I  am  the  only  politician  of  my  time."  ! 
Philosophy  was  for  him  a  study  of  human  possi- 
bilities in  the  light  of  human  realities  and  limita- 
tions ;  his  daily  food  consisted  of  the  problems 
of  human  relations  and  endeavors  :  problems  of 
liberty  versus  order;  of  sex  relations  and  the 
family;  of  ideals  of  character  and  citizenship, 
and  the  educational  approaches  to  those  ideals ; 
problems  of  the  control  of  population,  of  heredity 
and  environment,  of  art  and  morals.  With  all 
his  liking  for  the  poetry  of  mysticism,  philosophy 
none  the  less  was  to  him  preeminently  an  adven- 
ture in  this  world ;  and  unlike  ourselves,  who 
follow  one  or  another  of  his  many  leads,  he  sailed 
virginal  seas.  Every  reader  in  every  age  has 
called  him  modern;  but  what  age  can  there  be 
to  which  Plato  will  not  still  be  modern? 

Plato  was  twenty-eight  when  Socrates  died ; 2 
and  though  he  was  not  present  at  the  drinking 
of  the  hemlock,  yet  the  passing  of  the  master 
must  have  been  a  tragic  blow  to  him.  It  brought 
him  face  to  face  with  death,  the  mother  of  meta- 
physics. Proudest  of  all  philosophers,  he  did  not 
hide  his  sense  of  debt  to  Socrates :  "I  thank  the 
gods,"  he  said,  "that  I  was  born  freeman,  not 
slave ;  Greek,  not  barbarian ;  man,  not  woman  ; 
but  above  all  that  I  was  born  in  the  time  of 
Socrates."     The  old  philosopher  gone,  Athens  be- 

1  Gorgias,  p.  521. 
*  399  B.C. 


38      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

came  for  a  time  intolerable  to  Plato  (some  say, 
Plato  to  Athens) ;  and  the  young  philosopher 
sailed  off  to  see  foreign  shores  and  take  nourish- 
ment of  other  cultures.  He  liked  the  peaceful 
orderliness  and  aged  dignity  with  which  a  long 
dominant  priesthood  had  invested  Egypt ;  be- 
side this  mellow  civilization,  he  was  willing  to 
be  told,  the  culture  of  his  native  Athens  was  but 
a  precarious  ethnological  sport.  He  liked  the 
Pythagoreans  of  southern  Italy,  with  their  aristo- 
cratic approach  to  the  problem  of  social  construc- 
tion and  their  communal  devotion  to  plain  living 
and  high  thinking ;  above  all  he  liked  their  em- 
phasis on  harmony  as  the  fundamental  pervasive 
relation  of  all  things  and  as  the  ideal  in  which  our 
human  discords  might  be  made  to  resolve  them- 
selves had  men  artistry  enough.  Other  lands  he 
saw  and  learnt  from :  stories  tell  how  he  risked 
his  handsome  head  to  build  an  ideal  state  in 
Syracuse;  how  he  was  sold  into  slavery  and  re- 
deemed by  a  friend ;  and  how  he  passed  down 
through  Palestine  even  to  India,  absorbing  the 
culture  of  their  peoples  with  a  kind  of  osmotic 
genius.  And  at  last,  after  twelve  years  of  wan- 
dering, he  heard  again  the  call  of  Athens,  and 
went  home,  stored  with  experience  and  ripe  with 
thought. 

Arrived  now  at  the  mid-point  of  his  life,  he 
turned  to  the  task  of  self-expression.  Should  he 
join  one  of  the  political  parties  and  try  to  make  the 
government  of  Athens  a  picture  of  his  thought? 


PLATO  :     PHILOSOPHY   AS   POLITICS         39 

Perhaps  he  felt  that  his  thought  was  not  yet 
definite  enough  for  that ;  politics  requires  answers 
in  Yes  or  No,  and  philosophy  deals  only  in  Yes- 
and-No.  He  hesitated  to  join  a  party  or  pledge 
himself  to  a  dogma;  and  was  prepared  to  be 
hated  by  all  parties  alike  for  this  hesitation.1 
Aristocracy  was  in  his  blood,  and  he  would  not 
stoop  to  conquer  by  a  plebiscite.  He  thought 
of  turning  to  the  stage,  as  Euripides  had  done, 
and  teaching  through  the  mask ;  in  his  youth  he 
had  written  plays,  and  smiled  now  to  think  how 
he  had  hoped  to  rival  Aristophanes.  But  there 
were  too  many  limitations  here,  of  religious  sub- 
ject and  dramatic  form  ;  Plato's  philosophy  was 
a  thing  of  ever  broadening  borders,  and  could  not 
be  cramped  into  a  ceremony.  But  neither  was 
his  philosophy  an  arid  academic  affair,  to  be 
written  down  as  one  places  in  order  the  bones  of 
a  skeleton ;  it  was  vibrantly  alive,  it  was  itself  a 
drama  and  a  religion.  Why  should  there  not  be 
a  drama  of  idea  as  well  as  of  action  ?  —  Had  not 
the  play  of  thought  its  tragedies  and  comedies? 
—  Was  not  philosophy,  after  all,  a  matter  of  life 
and  death? 

In  such  a  juncture  of  desires  came  that  fusion 
of  drama  and  philosophy  which  we  know  as  Plato's 
dialogues,  —  assuredly  the  finest  production  in 
all  the  history  of  philosophy.  Here  was  just  the 
instrument  for  a  man  whose  thought  had  not 
congealed  into  dogmas  and  a  system.     All  genius 

1  Epistles,  viii,  325. 


40      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

is  heterogeneous ;  a  great  man  is  a  sum  of  many 
men ;  —  let  the  soul  give  its  selves  a  voice,  and  it 
will  speak  in  dialogue.1  Just  instrument,  too,  for 
a  man  who  wished  to  play  with  the  varied  possi- 
bilities of  speculation,  who  cared  to  clarify  his 
own  mind  rather  than  to  give  forth  finalities  where 
life  itself  was  so  blind  and  inconclusive.  A  con- 
clusion is  too  often  but  the  point  at  which  thought 
has  lost  its  wind ;  being  not  so  much  a  solution 
of  the  problem  as  a  dissolution  of  thought.  Hence 
the  riotous  play  of  the  imagination  in  Plato; 
lively  game  of  trial  and  error,  merry-go-round 
of  thought ;  here  is  imagery  squandered  with 
lordly  abandon  ;  here  is  humor  such  as  one  misses 
in  our  ponderous  modern  philosophers ;  here  is 
no  system  but  all  systems ; 2  here  is  one  abounding 
fountain-head  of  European  thought ;  here  is  prose 
strong  and  beautiful  as  the  great  temples  where 
Greek  joy  disported  itself  in  marble ;  here  literary 
prose  is  born,  —  and  born  adult. 

II 

How  to  Solve  the  Social  Problem 

To  understand  Plato  one  must  remember  the 
Pythagorean    motif:     harmony   is   the   heart    of 

1  "When  the  soul  does  not  speak  in  dialogue  it  is  not  in 
difficulty."  —  Professor  Woodbridge,  in  class. 

2  "If  we  look  for  a  system  of  philosophy  in  Plato,  we  shall 
probably  not  find  it ;  but  if  we  look  for  none  we  may  find 
most  of  the  philosophies  ever  written."  —  Professor  Wood- 
bridge. 


PLATO  :     PHILOSOPHY   AS   POLITICS         41 

Plato's  metaphysics,  of  his  psychological  and  edu- 
cational theory,  of  his  ethics  and  his  politics.  To 
feel  such  harmony  as  there  is,  and  to  make  such 
harmony  as  may  be,  —  that  to  Plato  is  the  mean- 
ing of  philosophy. 

We  observe  this  at  the  outset  in  the  more- 
mystified-than  mystifying  theory  of  ideas. 
Obviously,  the  theory  of  ideas  belongs  to  Soc- 
rates ;  the  Platonic  element  is  a  theory  not  of 
ideas  so  much  as  of  ideals.  Socrates  wants  truth, 
but  Plato  wants  beauty,  harmony.  Socrates  is 
bent  on  argument,  and  points  you  to  a  concept ; 
Plato  is  a  poet  with  a  vision,  and  points  you  to  the 
picture  that  he  sees.  Understanding,  says  Plato, 
is  of  the  earth  earthly ;  but  poetic  vision  is  divine.1 
Hence  the  maze  of  quibbling  in  the  dialogues ;  it 
is  Plato  and  not  Socrates  who  is  culprit  here. 
Reasoning  was  an  alien  art  to  Plato ;  try  as  he 
might  to  become  a  mathematician  he  remained 
always  a  poet,  —  and  perhaps  most  so  when  he 
dealt  with  numbers.  Dialectic  was  in  Plato's 
day  a  recent  invention ;  he  plays  with  it  like  a 
youth  in  the  breakers,  letting  it  now  raise  him  to 
heights  of  ecstatic  vision  and  now  bury  him  in 
the  deadliest  logic-chopping.  But  —  let  us  not 
doubt  it  —  he  knows  when  he  is  logic-chopping ; 
he  goes  on,  partly  that  he  may  paint  his  picture, 
partly  for  the  mere  joy  of  parrying  pros  and  cons ; 
this  new  game,  he  feels,  is  a  sport  for  the  gods. 

Let  us  smile  at  the  heavy  seriousness  of  those 

« Phcedrua,  244. 


42      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

who  suppose  that  this  man  meant  everything  he 
said.  No  one  does,  but  least  of  all  men  Plato, 
who  hardly  taught  except  in  parables.  What  is 
the  "heaven"  of  the  ideas  but  a  poet's  way  of 
saying  that  the  constancies  observable  in  the  re- 
lations among  things  are  not  identical  with  the 
things  themselves,  but  have  a  reality  and  per- 
manence of  their  own?  So  we  phrase  it  in  our 
own  distinguished  verbiage ;  but  Plato  prefers, 
as  ever,  to  draw  a  picture.  And  notice,  in  this 
picture,  the  ever  present  reference  to  social  needs. 
What  is  a  concept,  after  all,  but  a  scheme  for  the 
conservation  of  mental  resources,  an  instrument 
of  prediction,  a  method  of  control  ?  Without  the 
power  to  form  concepts  we  could  never  turn  ex- 
perience to  use,  it  would  slip  between  our  ringers ; 
we  should  be  like  the  maidens  condemned  to  carry 
water  in  a  sieve.  The  idea  of  anything  is  the 
sum  of  its  observed  constancies  of  behavior; 
hence  the  medium  of  our  adaptation  and  control. 
To  have  ideas  of  things  is  to  know  the  map  or 
plan  of  things ;  it  is  to  see  tendencies,  directions, 
and  results ;  it  is  to  know  how  to  use  things. 
That  is  why  knowledge  is  power ;  every  idea  is  a 
tool  with  which  to  bend  the  world  to  serve  our 
will.  And  that  too  is  why  the  Ideas  are  real : 
they  have  power,  and  "  anything  which  possesses 
any  sort  of  power  is  real."  1 

All  this,  as  was  said,  is  but  an  embellishment  of 
the  Socratic  doctrine  that  salvation  lies  in  brains. 

1  Sophist,  247. 


PLATO  :     PHILOSOPHY   AS   POLITICS         43 

But  Plato  rushes  on.  Not  only  may  everything 
be  brought  under  a  concept,  an  Idea,  but  it  may 
be  brought  under  a  perfect  Form,  an  Ideal. 
Things  are  not  what  they  might  be.  Men  are 
not  such  as  men  might  be,  states  are  often  sorry 
states,  beds  might  be  more  ideal  beds,  even  dirt 
could  be  more  perfectly  dirt.  To  all  things  that 
are,  there  correspond  perfect  Ideals  of  what  they 
might  be,  in  a  thoroughly  harmonious  world. 
To  say  that  these  Ideals  are  real,  that  they  exist, 
is  only  to  claim  for  them  that  they  are  operative, 
and  get  results.  Whether  his  supernaturalism 
was  only  part  of  his  political  theory,  others  may 
dispute ;  let  it  suffice  us  at  present  that  Plato 
believed  that  the  Ideals  could  and  did  operate 
through  human  agency.  The  distinctive  thing 
about  man  is  that  perceiving  the  thing  that 
is,  he  can  conceive  the  thing  that  might  be.  He 
is  the  forward-looking,  ideal-making  animal ; 
through  him,  if  he  but  will  it,  proceeds  creation. 
The  brute  may  be  a  thinker,  but  man  may  be 
also  an  artist.  Out  of  the  abundance  of  the  sexual 
instinct  (as  Plato  implies  in  the  Symposium) 
emerges  this  ideal-seeking  and  -making  quality; 
from  which  come  art  and  ethics  and  religion. 
William  Morris  looks  at  a  slum  and  conceives 
Utopia ;  and  forthwith  begins  to  make  for  Utopia 
even  though  the  road  lead  him  through  a  jail. 
Is  it  that  William  Morris  loves  "humanity"? 
Not  at  all ;  he  loves  beauty  and  his  dream ;  he 
is  uncomfortable  with  all  this  dirt  and  despair 


44      PHILOSOPHY   AND    THE    SOCIAL    PROBLEM 

before  him ;  it  is  his  fortune  or  misfortune  that 
he  cannot  see  these  slums  without  falling  thrall 
to  a  vision  of  better  things.  So  with  most  of  us 
"reformers":  we  wish  to  change  things,  not 
because  we  love  our  fellows  much  more  than 
"conservatives"  do,  nor  because  we  believe  that 
happiness  varies  with  income ;  but  because  we 
hear  the  call  of  the  beautiful,  and  see  in  the 
mind's  eye  another  form  wherein  the  world 
might  come  more  pleasingly  to  sight. 

What  we  have  to  do,  says  Plato,  is  to  make 
people  conceive  a  better  world,  so  that  they  may 
see  this  world  as  ugly,  and  may  strive  to  reshape 
it.  We  must  conceive  the  perfect  Forms  of 
things,  and  batter  this  poor  world  till  it  re-form 
itself  and  take  these  perfect  shapes.  To  learn  to 
see  —  and  seeing  learn  to  make  —  these  perfect 
Forms :  that  is  the  task  of  philosophers.  To 
make  philosophers :  that  is  the  social  problem. 

Ill 

On  Making  Philosopher-Kings 

It  is  simple,  isn't  it  ?  Give  us  enough  philoso- 
phers, and  the  beautiful  city  will  walk  out  of  the 
picture  into  the  fact.  But  how  make  philoso- 
phers? And  perhaps  there  is  a  perfect  Form  for 
philosophers,  too?  How  shall  we  "see  —  and 
seeing  learn  to  make"  —  the  perfect  philosopher? 

Let  us  not  worry  about  this  little  matter  of 
dialectics,  says  Plato ;   we  know  quite  well  some 


PLATO  :  PHILOSOPHY  AS  POLITICS    45 

of  the  things  we  must  do  in  order  that  we  may- 
have  more  and  greater  philosophers.  It  is  quite 
clear  that  one  thing  we  must  do  is  to  give  our 
best  brains  to  education. 

Is  that  trite?  Not  at  all.  Do  we  give  our 
best  brains  to  education?  Do  we  offer  more  to 
our  ministers  or  commissioners  of  education  than 
to  our  presidents,  or  governors,  or  mayors,  or 
bank  presidents,  or  pugilists  ?  Or  do  we  honor 
them  more  ?  When  Plato  says  that  the  office  of  ~  . 
minister  of  education  is  "of  all  the  great  offices 
of  state  the  greatest,"  and  that  the  citizens  should 
elect  their  very  best  man  to  this  office,1  he  is  not 
pronouncing  a  platitude,  he  is  making  a  radical, 
a  revolutionary  proposition.  It  has  never  been 
done,  and  it  will  not  soon  be  done ;  for  men, 
naturally  enough,  are  (more  interested  in  making  /--* 

money  than  in  making  philosophers.)  And  yet, 
says  Plato,  gently  but  resolutely,  we  may  as  well 
understand  that  until  we  give  our  best  brains  to 
the  problem  of  making  philosophers  our  much-ado 
about  social  ills  will  amount  to  noise  and  wind, 
and  nothing  more.  "  How  charming  people  are  I" 
he  writes,  drawing  an  analogy  between  the  in- 
dividual and  the  body  politic  ;  "they  are  always 
doctoring  —  and  thereby  increasing  and  compli- 
cating —  their  disorders,  fancying  they  will  be 
cured  by  some  nostrum  which  somebody  advises 
them  to  try,  —  never  getting  better  but  always 
growing  worse.  .  .  .     Are  they  not  as  good  as  a 

i  Laws,  765-6. 


46      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PEOBLEM 

play,  trying  their  hand  at  legislation,  and  imagin- 
ing that  by  reforms  they  will  make  an  end  to  the 
dishonesties  and  rascalities  of  mankind,  not  know- 
ing that  they  are  in  reality  cutting  away  at  the 
heads  of  a  hydra?"  l 

Notice  that  the  aim  of  the  educational  process 
is,  for  Plato,  not  so  much  the  general  spread  of 
intelligence  as  the  discovery  and  development  of 
the  superior  man.  (This  conception  of  the  task 
of  the  educator  appears  again  and  again  in  later 
thought :  we  hear  it  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
for  example,  in  Carlyle's  "hero,"  Schopenhauer's 
"genius,"  and  Nietzsche's  "superman.")  It  is 
very  naive,  thinks  Plato,  to  look  to  the  masses  as 
the  source  and  hope  of  social  improvement ;  the 
proper  function  of  the  masses  is  to  toil  as  cheer- 
fully as  may  be  for  the  development  and  support 
of  the  genius  who  will  make  them  happy  —  so  far 
as  they  are  capable  of  happiness.  To  aim  directly 
at  the  elevation  of  all  is  to  open  the  door  to 
mediocrity  and  futility ;  to  find  and  nurse  the 
potential  genius,  —  that  is  an  end  worthy  the 
educator's  subtle  art. 

Now  if  you  are  going  to  discover  genius  in  the 
bud  you  must  above  all  things  handle  your  ma- 
terial, at  the  outset  at  least,  with  tender  care. 
You  must  not  overflow  with  prohibitions,  or  in- 
dulge yourself  too  much  in  the  luxury  of  punish- 
ments. "Mother  and  father  and  nurse  and  tutor 
set  to  quarrelling  about  the  improvement  of  the 

i  Republic,  425. 


PLATO  :     PHILOSOPHY   AS   POLITICS         47 

child  as  soon  as  ever  he  is  able  to  understand 
them  :  he  cannot  say  or  do  anything  without  their 
setting  forth  to  him  that  this  is  just  and  that  un- 
just, this  honorable  and  that  dishonorable,  this 
holy  and  that  unholy,  do  this  and  don't  do  that. 
And  if  he  obeys,  well  and  good ;  if  not  he  is 
straightened  by  threats  and  blows,  like  a  piece  of 
warped  wood."  1  Suppress  here,  and  you  get  ex- 
pression there  ;  —  often  enough,  abnormal  expres- 
sion. Better  have  no  hard  mould  of  uniformity 
and  conformity  wherein  to  crush  and  deform  each 
differently  aspiring  soul.  Think  twice  before  forc- 
ing your  'isms  and  'ologies  upon  the  child ;  his 
own  desires  will  be  your  best  curriculum.  "The 
elements  of  instruction,"  writes  Plato,  in  a  too- 
little-noticed  passage,  "should  be  presented  to  the 
mind  in  childhood,  but  without  any  notion  of 
forcing  them.  For  a  freeman  ought  to  be  a  free- 
man in  the  acquisition  of  knowledge.  Bodily 
exercise,  when  compulsory,  does  no  harm ;  but 
knowledge  which  is  acquired  under  compulsion 
has  no  hold  on  the  mind.  Therefore  do  not  use 
compulsion,  but  let  early  education  be  a  sort  of 
amusement ;  that  will  better  enable  you  to  find 
out  the  natural  bent."  2  There  is  a  stroke  of 
Plato's  genius  here :  it  is  a  point  which  we  lag- 
gards are  coming  to  after  some  two  thousand 
three  hundred  years.  "To  find  out  the  natural 
bent,"  to  catch  the  spark  of  divine  fire  before  con- 

1  Protagoras,  325. 
1  Republic,  536. 


48      PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    PROBLEM 

formity  can  put  it  out ;  that  is  the  beginning 
and  yet  the  summit  of  the  educator's  task,  —  the 
initium  dimidium  facti. 

In  this  search  for  genius  all  souls  shall  be  tried. 
Education  must  be  universal  and  compulsory; 
children  belong  not  to  parents  but  to  the  state 
and  to  the  future.1  And  education  cannot  begin 
too  early.  Cleinias,  asking  whether  education 
should  begin  at  birth,  is  astonished  to  be  answered, 
"No,  before"  ;  and  if  Plato  could  have  his  way, 
no  doubt  there  would  be  a  realization  of  Dr. 
Holmes'  suggestion  that  a  man's  education 
should  begin  two  thousand  years  before  he  is 
born.  The  chief  concern  at  the  outset  will  be  to 
develop  the  body,  and  not  to  fill  the  soul  with 
letters ;  let  the  child  be  taught  his  letters  at  ten, 
but  not  before.2  Music  will  share  with  gymnas- 
tics the  task  of  rounded  development.  The  boy 
who  tells  his  teacher  that  the  athletic  field  is  as 
important  and  necessary  a  part  of  education  as 
the  lecture-room  is  right.  "How  shall  we  find  a 
gentle  nature  which  has  also  great  courage?"3 
Music  mixed  with  athletics  will  do  it.  "I  am 
quite  aware  that  your  mere  athlete  becomes  too 
much  of  a  savage,  and  that  the  musician  is  melted 
and  softened  beyond  what  is  good  for  him."  4 
There  is  a  determination  here  that  even  the  genius 
shall  be  healthy ;  Plato  will  not  tolerate  the 
notion  that  to  be  a  genius  one  needs  to  be  sick : 

1  Laws,  804.  *  Republic,  375. 

2  Ibid.,  810.  *  Ibid.,  410. 


PLATO  !     PHILOSOPHY   AS   POLITICS         49 

let  the  genius  have  his  say,  but  let  him,  too,  be 
reminded  that  he  is  no  disembodied  spirit.  And 
let  art  take  care  lest  its  vaunted  purgation  be  a 
purgation  of  our  strength  and  manhood ;  poetry 
and  soft  music  may  make  men  slaves.  No 
man  shall  bother  with  music  after  the  age  of 
sixteen.1 

At  twenty  a  general  test  will  weed  out  those 
who  give  indication  that  further  educative  labor 
will  be  wasted  on  them ;  the  others  will  go  on 
for  another  decade,  and  a  second  test  will  elimi- 
nate those  who  will  in  the  meantime  have  reached 
the  limit  of  their  capacities  for  development. 
The  final  survivors  will  then  —  and  not  before  — 
be  introduced  to  philosophy.  "They  must  not 
be  allowed  to  taste  the  dear  delight  too  early ; 
that  is  a  thing  especially  to  be  avoided ;  for 
young  men,  as  you  may  have  observed,  when  they 
first  get  the  taste  in  their  mouths,  argue  for 
amusement,  and  are  always  contradicting  and  re- 
futing, like  puppy-dogs  that  delight  to  tear  and 
pull  at  all  who  come  near  them.  .  .  .  And  when 
they  have  made  many  conquests  and  received 
defeats  at  the  hands  of  many,  they  violently  and 
speedily  get  into  a  way  of  not  believing  anything 
that  they  believed  before,  and  hence  not  only  they, 
but  philosophy  generally,  have  a  bad  name  with 
the  rest  of  the  world."  2 

Five  happy  years  are  given  to  the  study  of 

i  Laws,  810. 

»  Republic,    539. 


50      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

philosophy.  Gradually,  the  student  learns  to 
see  the  universal  behind  the  particular,  to  judge 
the  part  by  relating  it  to  the  whole  ;  the  fragments 
of  his  experience  fall  into  a  harmonious  philosophy 
of  life.  The  sciences  which  he  has  learned  are 
now  united  as  a  consistent  application  of  intelli- 
gence to  life ;  indeed,  the  faculty  of  uniting  the 
sciences  and  focussing  them  on  the  central  prob- 
lems of  life,  is  precisely  the  criterion  of  the  true 
philosopher.1  But  involved  in  this  is  a  certain 
practical  quality,  a  sense  for  realities  and  limita- 
tions. One  must  study  books  —  and  men  ;  one 
should  read  much,  but  live  more.  So  Plato  legis- 
lates that  his  new  philosophers  shall  spend  the 
years  from  thirty-five  to  fifty  in  the  busy  din  of 
practical  life ;  they  must,  in  his  immortal  image, 
go  back  into  the  cave.  The  purpose  of  higher 
education  is  to  detach  us  for  a  time  from  the  life 
of  action,  but  only  so  that  we  may  later  return 
to  it  with  a  better  perspective.  To  be  put  for  a 
goodly  time  upon  one's  own  resources,  to  butter 
one's  own  bread  for  a  while,  —  that  is  an  almost 
indispensable  prerequisite  to  greatness.  Out  of 
such  a  test  men  come  with  the  scars  of  many 
wounds ;  but  to  those  who  are  not  fools  every 
scar  is  the  mark  of  a  lesson  learned. 

And  now  here  are  our  philosophers,  ripe  and 
fifty,  hardened  by  the  tests  of  learning  and  of  life. 
What  shall  we  do  with  them?  Put  them  away 
in  a  lecture-room  and  pay  no  further  attention 

1  Republic,  537. 


PLATO  :     PHILOSOPHY   AS   POLITICS         51 

to  them?  Give  them,  as  their  life-work,  the 
problem  of  finding  how  Spinoza  deduces,  or  fails 
to  deduce,  the  Many  from  the  One  ?  Have  them 
fill  learned  esoteric  journals  with  unintelligible 
jargon  about  the  finite  and  the  infinite,  or  space 
and  time,  or  the  immateriality  of  roast  beef  ?  No, 
says  Plato ;   let  them  govern  the  state. 

Did  Plato  mean  it  ?  Was  he  so  enraged  at  the 
state-murder  of  the  most  beloved  of  philosophers 
that  he  forearmed  himself  against  such  a  contre- 
temps in  his  Utopia  by  making  the  philosophers 
supreme?  —  Was  it  only  his  magnificent  journal- 
istic revenge  ?  Was  it  merely  his  reaction  to  the 
observed  cramping  and  mediocritization  of  su- 
perior intellects  in  a  democracy?  Was  it  but 
Plato's  dramatic  way  of  emphasizing  the  Socratic 
plea  for  intelligence  as  the  basis  of  morals  and 
social  life  ?  Perhaps  all  this ;  but  much  more. 
It  was  his  sober  judgment ;  it  was  the  influence 
of  the  Egyptian  priesthood  and  the  Pythagorean 
brotherhood  coming  to  the  surface  in  him  ;  it  was 
the  long-accumulated  deposit  of  the  stream  of  his 
personal  experience. 

We  have  to  remember  here  that  by  philosopher 
Plato  does  not  mean  Immanuel  Kant.  He  means 
a  living  being,  a  man  like  Seneca  or  Francis  Bacon, 
a  man  in  whom  knowledge  is  fused  with  action, 
and  keen  perception  joins  with  steady  hand ;  a 
man  who  has  had  not  only  the  teaching  of  books 
but  the  discipline  of  hard  experience ;  a  man  who 
has  learned  with  equal  readiness  to  obey  and  to 


52      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PKOBLEM 

command ;  a  man  whose  thought  is  coordinated 
by  application  to  the  vital  problems  of  human 
society.  "Inasmuch  as  philosophers  alone  are 
able  to  grasp  the  eternal  and  unchangeable,  and 
those  who  wander  in  the  region  of  the  many  and 
variable  are  not  philosophers,  I  must  ask  you 
which  of  the  two  kinds  should  be  rulers  of  our 
state?"  l  Well,  then,  "Until  philosophers  are 
kings,  or  the  kings  and  princes  of  this  world  have 
the  spirit  and  power  of  philosophy,  .  .  .  cities 
will  never  cease  from  ill,  nor  the  human 
race."  2 
That,  of  course,  is  the  heart  and  soul  of  Plato. 


IV 

Dishonest  Democracy 

Let  us  get  back  to  the  circumference  and  ap- 
proach this  same  point  by  another  route. 

I  grant  you,  says  Plato,  that  to  have  rulers  at 
all  is  very  disagreeable.  And  indeed  we  should 
not  need  to  have  them  were  it  not  for  a  regrettable 
but  real  porcine  element  in  us.  My  own  Utopia 
is  not  an  aristocracy  nor  a  democracy,  nor  any 
kind  of  an  'ocracy;  it  is  what  some  of  you  would 
call  an  anarchist  communism.  I  have  described 
it  very  clearly  in  the  second  book  of  my  Republic, 
but  nobody  cares  to  notice  it,  except  to  repeat 

»  Republic,  184. 
*  Ibid.,  473. 


PLATO  :     PHILOSOPHY    AS    POLITICS  53 

my  brother's  gibe  about  it.1  But  instead  of  this 
Utopia  of  mine  being  a  "City  of  Pigs,"  it  is  just 
because  we  are  pigs  that  I  had  to  give  up  paint- 
ing this  picture  and  turn  to  describing  "not  only 
a  state,  but  a  luxurious  state."  I  am  still  "of 
opinion  that  the  true  state,  which  may  be  said 
to  be  a  healthy  constitution,  is  the  one  which  I 
have  described,"  and  not  the  "inflamed  constitu- 
tion" to  which  I  devoted  the  rest  of  my  book, 
and  which  in  my  opinion  is  much  more  a  "City 
of  Pigs"  than  the  other.  It  is  because  people 
want  "to  lie  on  sofas,  and  dine  off  tables,  and  have 

'The  passage,  abbreviated,  follows:  "First,  then,  let  us 
consider  what  will  be  their  way  of  life,  now  that  we  have  thus 
established  them.  Will  they  not  produce  corn,  and  wine> 
and  clothes,  and  shoes,  and  build  houses  for  themselves? 
And  when  they  are  housed,  they  will  work  in  summer  com- 
monly stripped  and  barefoot,  but  in  winter  substantially 
clothed  and  shod.  They  will  feed  on  barley  and  wheat, 
baking  the  wheat  and  kneading  the  flour,  making  noble  pud- 
dings and  loaves ;  these  they  will  serve  up  on  a  mat  of  reeds 
or  clean  leaves,  themselves  reclining  the  while  upon  beds  of 
yew  or  myrtle  boughs.  And  they  and  their  children  will 
feast,  drinkiDg  of  the  wine  which  they  have  made,  wearing 
garlands  on  their  heads,  and  having  the  praises  of  the  gods  on 
their  lips,  living  in  sweet  society,  and  having  a  care  that  their 
families  do  not  exceed  their  means ;  for  they  will  have  an  eye 
to  poverty  or  war.  ...  Of  course  they  will  have  a  relish,  — 
salt,  and  olives,  and  cheese,  and  onions,  and  cabbages  or 
other  country  herbs  which  are  fit  for  boiling ;  and  we  shall 
give  them  a  dessert  of  figs,  and  pulse,  and  beans,  and  myrtle- 
berries,  and  beech-nuts,  which  they  will  roast  at  the  fire, 
drinking  in  moderation.  And  with  such  a  diet  they  may  be 
expected  to  live  in  peace  to  a  good  old  age,  and  bequeath  a 
similar  life  to  their  children  after  them."  —  Republic,  372. 
Cf.  The  Rousseauian  anthropology  of  Laws,  679. 


54      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

dainties  and  dessert  in  the  modern  fashion,  .  .  . 
and  perfumes,  and  incense,  and  courtesans,  and 
cakes,  and  gold,  and  ivory,  .  .  .  hunters  and 
actors,  .  .  .  musicians,  players,  dancers,  .  .  . 
tutors,  .  .  .  servants  .  .  .  nurses  wet  and  dry, 
.  .  .  barbers,  confectioners  and  cooks,  .  .  .  and 
hosts  of  animals  (if  people  are  to  eat  animals), 
.  .  .  and  physicians ;  .  .  .  then  a  slice  of  neigh- 
bor's land  .  .  .  and  then  war,"  1  —  in  short,  it  is 
because  people  are  pigs  that  you  must  have  sol- 
diers and  rulers  and  laws. 

But  if  you  must  have  them,  why  not  train  your 
best  men  for  the  work,  just  as  you  train  some  to 
be  doctors,  and  others  to  be  lawyers,  and  others 
to  be  engineers?  Think  of  taking  a  man's  pills 
just  because  he  can  show  a  count  of  noses  in  his 
favor !  Think  of  letting  a  man  build  the  world's 
greatest  bridge  because  he  is  popular!  You  ac- 
cuse me  of  plagiarizing  from  Pythagoras,  but  in 
truth,  you  who  believe  in  democracy  are  the 
Pythagoreans  of  politics,  —  you  believe  in  num- 
ber as  your  god.  Your  equality  is  the  equality  of 
the  unequal,  and  is  all  a  matter  of  words  and  never 
of  reality ;  your  liberty  is  anarchy,  it  is  the  con- 
genital sickness  wherein  your  democracy  was  con- 
ceived and  delivered,  and  whereof  it  inevitably 
dies ;  your  freedom  of  speech  is  a  license  to  lie ; 
your  elections  are  a  contest  in  flattery  and  pre- 
varication. Your  democracy  is  a  theatrocracy ; 
and  woe  to  the  genius  who  falls  into  your  hands. 

i  Republic,  372-3. 


PLATO  :     PHILOSOPHY   AS    POLITICS  55 

Perhaps  you  like  democracy  because  you  are  like 
democracy  :  all  your  desires  are  on  a  level ;  that 
you  should  respect  some  of  them  and  discipline 
others  is  an  idea  that  never  enters  your  heads. 
It  has  never  occurred  to  you  that  it  takes  more 
time  and  training  to  make  a  statesman  than  it 
does  to  make  a  bootblack.  But  statesmanship  is 
something  that  can  never  be  conferred  by  plebis- 
cite ;  it  must  be  pursued  through  the  years,  and 
must  find  the  privilege  of  office  without  submitting 
to  a  vote.  Wisdom  is  too  subtle  a  thing  to  be 
felt  by  the  coarsened  senses  of  the  mob.  Your 
industry  is  wonderful  because  it  is  shot  through 
with  specialization  and  training  ;  but  because  you 
reject  specialization  and  training  in  rilling  the 
offices  of  your  government  the  word  politics  has 
become  dishonored  in  your  mouths.  And  just 
because  you  will  let  any  one  be  your  leader  no  real 
man  ever  submits  himself  to  your  choice. 


Culture  and  Slavery 

There  is  much  exaggeration  here,  of  course,  as 
might  be  expected  of  one  whose  material  and  so- 
cial concerns  were  bound  up  with  the  oligarchical 
party  at  Athens,  whose  friends  and  relatives  had 
died  in  battle  against  the  armies  of  the  democracy  ; 
whose  early  years  had  seen  the  democratic  mis- 
management of  the  Peloponnesian  war  and  the 
growth  of  a  disorderly  individualism  in  Athens. 


56      PHILOSOPHY    AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

But  there  are  also  lessons  here  for  those  who  are 
strong  enough  to  learn  even  from  their  enemies.1 
To  press  home  these  lessons  at  this  point  would 
take  us  too  far  afield  ;  our  plan  for  the  moment  is 
to  follow  Plato's  guidance  until  he  has  led  us 
out  into  a  clear  view  of  his  position. 

We  sh^ll  suppose  such  a  scheme  of  education 
as  Plato  desires  ;  we  shall  suppose  that  a  moderate 
number  of  those  who  entered  the  lists  at  birth 
have  survived  test  after  test,  have  "tasted  the 
clear  delight"  of  philosophy  for  five  years,  and 
have  passed  safely  through  the  ordeal  of  practical 
affairs ;  these  men  (and  women,  as  we  shall  see) 
now  automatically  become  the  rulers  of  the  Pla- 
tonic state :  let  us  observe  them  in  their  work 
and  in  their  lives. 

To  the  guardians  it  is  a  matter  of  first  principles 
that  the  function  of  the  state  —  and  therefore 
their  function  —  is  a  positive  function  ;  they  are 
to  lead  the  people,  and  not  merely  to  serve  as  an 
umpire  of  disputes.  They  are  the  protagonists 
of  a  social  evolution  that  has  at  last  become 
conscious ;  they  are  resolved  that  henceforth 
social  organization  shall  be  a  far-seeing  plan  and 
not  a  haphazard  flux  of  expediencies  of  control. 
They  know  that  they  are  asked  to  be  experts  in 
foresight   and   coordination ;    they  will  legislate 

1  Much  of  modern  criticism  of  democracy  finds  its  inspira- 
tion in  Plato.  Cf.  Bernard  Shaw:  "The  democratic  politi- 
cian remains  exactly  as  Plato  described  him."  Cf.  also  the 
Modern  Utopia  and  Research  Magnificent  of  H.  G.  Wells. 
Nietzsche's  debt  to  Plato  will  appear  in  a  later  chapter. 


PLATO  :  PHILOSOPHY  AS  POLITICS    57 

accordingly,  and  will  no  more  think  of  asking  the 
people  what  laws  should  be  passed  than  a  physi- 
cian would  ask  the  people  what  measures  should 
be  taken  to  preserve  the  public  health. 

And  first  of  all  they  will  control  population ; 
they  will  consider  this  to  be  the  indispensable 
prerequisite  to  a  planned  development.  The 
state  must  not  be  larger  than  is  consistent  with 
unity  and  with  the  efficacy  of  central  control. 
People  may  mate  as  they  will,  —  that  is  their 
own  concern ;  but  they  must  understand  quite 
clearly  that  procreation  is  an  affair  of  the  state. 
Children  must  be  born  not  of  love  but  of  science ; 
marriage  will  be  a  temporary  relation,  allowing 
frequent  remating  for  the  sake  of  beautiful  off- 
spring. Men  shall  not  have  children  before  thirty, 
nor  after  forty.  Deformed  or  incurably  diseased 
children  will  be  exposed  to  die.  Children  must 
leave  their  mothers  at  birth,  and  be  brought  up 
by  the  state.  Women  must  be  freed  from  bond- 
age to  their  children,  if  women  are  to  be  real 
citizens,  interested  in  the  public  weal,  and  loving 
not  a  narrow  family  but  the  great  community. 

For  women  are  to  be  citizens ;  it  would  be 
foolish  to  let  half  the  people  be  withdrawn  from 
interest  in  and  service  to  the  state.  Women  will 
receive  all  the  educational  advantages  offered  to 
men ;  they  will  even  wrestle  with  them,  naked, 
in  the  games.  If  any  of  them  —  and  surely  some 
of  them  will  —  pass  all  the  tests,  they  shall  be 
guardians,  too.     People   are  to  be   divided,  for 


58       PHILOSOPHY   AND    THE    SOCIAL    PROBLEM 

political  purposes,  not  by  difference  of  sex,  but 
by  difference  of  capacity.  Some  women  may  be 
fit  not  for  housekeeping  but  for  ruling,  —  let 
them  rule ;  some  men  may  be  fit  not  for  ruling 
but  for  housekeeping,  —  let  them  keep  house. 

Without  family,  and  without  clearly  ascertain- 
able relationship  between  any  man  and  any  child, 
there  can  be  no  individual  inheritance  of  property ; 
the  guardians  will  have  all  things  in  common, 
and  without  Tertullian's  exception.1  Shut  off 
from  the  possibility  of  personal  bequests  or  of 
"founding  a  family,"  the  guardians  will  have  no 
stimulus  to  laying  up  a  hoard  of  material  goods ; 
nay,  they  will  not  be  moved  to  such  hoarding  by 
fear  of  the  morrow,  for  a  modest  but  sufficient 
maintenance  will  be  supplied  them  by  the  work- 
ing classes.  There  will  be  no  money  in  use  among 
them ;  they  will  live  a  hard  simple  life,  devoted 
to  the  problems  of  communal  defence  and  develop- 
ment. Freed  from  family  ties,  from  private 
property  and  luxury,  from  violence  and  litigation, 
and  all  distinctions  of  Mine  and  Thine,  they  will 
have  no  reason  to  oppress  the  workers  in  order 
to  lay  up  stores  for  themselves ;  they  will  be 
happy  in  the  exercise  of  their  high  responsibilities 
and  powers.  They  will  not  be  tempted  to  legis- 
late for  the  good  of  their  own  class  rather  than 
for  the  good  of  the  community ;  their  joy  will  lie 
in  the  creation  of  a  prosperous  and  harmonious 
state. 

1  "Omnia  communia  inter  nos  habemus,  praeter  mulieres." 


PLATO  I     PHILOSOPHY   AS   POLITICS         59 

Under  their  direction  will  be  the  soldiers,  also 
specially  selected  and  trained,  and  supported  by 
the  workers.     But  these  workers  ? 

They  will  be  those  who  have  been  eliminated 
in  the  tests.  The  demands  of  specialization  will 
have  condemned  them  to  labor  for  those  who 
have  the  gift  of  guidance.  They  shall  have  no 
voice  in  the  direction  of  the  state ;  that,  as  said, 
is  a  reward  for  demonstrated  capacity,  and  not  a 
"natural  right."  1  Frankly,  there  are  some 
people  who  are  not  fit  to  be  other  than  slaves ; 
and  to  varnish  that  fact  with  oratory  about  "the 
dignity  of  labor"  is  merely  to  give  an  instance  of 
the  indignities  to  which  a  democratic  politician 
will  descend.  These  workers  are  incapable  of  a 
subtler  happiness  than  that  of  knowing  that  they 
are  doing  what  they  are  fit  to  do,  and  are  con- 
tributing to  the  maintenance  of  communal  pros- 
perity. Such  as  they  are,  these  workers,  like  the 
other  members  of  the  state,  will  find  their  highest 
possibilities  of  development  in  such  an  organized 
society.  And  to  make  sure  that  they  will  not 
rebel,  they  will  have  been  taught  by  "royal  lies" 
that  their  position  and  function  in  the  state  have 
been  ordained  by  the  gods.  There  is  no  sense  in 
shivering  at  this  quite  judicious  juggling  with 
the  facts ;  there  are  times  when  truth  is  a  barrier 

1  Let  us  remember  that  a  property-qualification  for  the 
vote  remained  in  our  own  political  system  till  the  time  of 
Jefferson,  and  has  in  our  own  day  been  resuscitated  in  some  of 
the  Southern  states. 


60      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

to  content,  and  must  be  set  aside.  Physicians 
have  been  known  to  cure  ailments  with  a  timely 
lie.  Labor  stimulated  by  such  deception  may  be 
slavery,  if  you  wish  to  call  it  so ;  but  it  is  the  in- 
evitable condition  of  order,  and  order  is  the 
inevitable  condition  of  culture  and  communal 
success. 

VI 

Plasticity  and  Order 

But  is  it  just?  —  some  one  asks.  Perhaps 
there  are  other  things  than  order  to  be  considered. 
Perhaps  this  hunger  for  order  is  a  disease,  like 
the  monistic  hunger  for  unity ;  perhaps  it  is  a 
corollary  to  the  a  priori  type  of  mind ;  perhaps 
it  is  part  of  the  philosopher's  general  inability  to 
face  a  possibly  irrational  reality.  Here  for  order's 
sake  the  greater  part  of  the  people  must  work  in 
silence  :  they  shall  not  utter  their  desires.  Here 
for  order's  sake  are  sacrificed  that  communal 
plasticity,  that  freedom  of  variety,  that  happy 
looseness  and  changeability  of  structure,  in  which 
lie  all  the  suggestion  and  potency  of  social  recon- 
struction. If  there  is  any  lesson  which  shines 
out  through  all  the  kaleidoscope  of  history,  it 
is  that  a  political  system  is  doomed  to  early 
death  if  its  charter  offer  no  provision  and  facility 
for  its  own  reform.  Plasticity  is  king.  Human 
ideals  change,  and  leave  nations,  institutions, 
even  gods,  in  their  wake.     "Law  and  order  in  a 


PLATO  :     PHILOSOPHY   AS   POLITICS         61 

state  are"  not  "the  cause  of  every  good"  ; x  they 
are  the  security  of  goods  attained,  but  they  may 
be  also  the  hindrance  of  goods  conceived.  A 
state  without  freedom  of  criticism  and  variation 
is  like  a  sail-boat  in  a  calm ;  it  stands  but  it  can- 
not move.  Such  a  state  is  a  geometrical  diagram, 
a  perfect  syllogism  evolved  out  of  impossible 
premises  ;  and  its  own  perfection  is  its  refutation. 
In  such  a  state  there  could  be  no  Plato,  with  a 
penchant  for  conceiving  Utopias ;  much  less  a 
Socrates,  holding  that  a  life  uncriticised  is  un- 
worthy of  a  man.  It  would  be  a  state  not  for 
philosophers  but  for  priests :  very  truly  its  basis 
would  not  be  dialectical  clarity  but  royal  lies. 
Here  is  the  supreme  pessimism,  the  ultimate 
atheism,  of  the  aristocrat,  that  he  does  not  believe 
in  the  final  wholesomeness  of  truth.  And  surely 
something  can  be  said  for  democracy.  Granted 
that  democracy  is  not  a  problem  solved  but  a 
problem  added ;  it  is  at  least  a  problem  that 
time  may  help  to  clarify.  Granted  that  men  used 
to  slavery  cannot  turn  and  wisely  rule  themselves  ; 
what  is  better  than  that  they  should,  by  xnevit- 
able  trial  and  error,  learn?  Errando  discimus. 
Granted  that  physicians  do  not  consult  us  in  their 
prescriptions;  but  neither  do  they  come  to  us 
before  they  are  chosen  and  called.  "That  the 
guardian  should  require  another  guardian  to 
guard  him  is  ridiculous  indeed."2    But  he  would  ! 

i  Laws,  783. 
2  Republic,  403. 


62      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

Power  corrupts  unless  it  is  shared  03^  all.  "Cities 
cannot  exist,  if  a  few  only  share  in  the  virtues,  as 
in  the  arts."  *  To  build  your  culture  on  the  backs 
of  slaves  is  to  found  your  city  on  Vesuvius.  Men 
will  not  be  lied  to  forever,  —  at  least  with  the 
same  lies  !  And  to  end  with  such  a  Utopia,  — 
what  is  it  but  to  yield  to  Thrasymachus,  to 
arrange  all  things  at  last  in  the  interest  of  the 
stronger?     Is  it  just? 

VII 

The  Meaning  of  Justice 

But  what  is  justice?  —  asks  Plato.  Don't  you 
see  that  our  notion  of  justice  is  the  very  crux  of 
the  whole  business?  Is  justice  merely  a  matter 
of  telling  the  truth?  Nonsense;  it  may  be  well 
to  have  our  children  believe  that ;  but  those  who 
are  not  children  know  that  if  a  lie  is  a  better  in- 
strument of  achievement  than  the  truth  in  some 
given  juncture  of  events,  then  a  lie  is  justified. 
Truth  is  a  social  value,  and  has  its  justification 
only  in  that ;  if  untruth  prove  here  and  there  of 
social  value,  then  untruth  is  just.2  The  confusion 
of  j  ustice  with  some  absolute  eternal  law  comes  of 
a  separation  of  ethics  from  politics,  and  an  attempt 
to  arrive  at  a  definition  of  justice  from  the  study 

1  Protagoras,  322. 

2  Plato,  says  Cleanthes,  "cursed  as  impious  him  who  first 
sundered  the  just  from  the  useful."  —  Gomperz,  ii,  73.  Cf. 
Republic,  331. 


PLATO  :  PHILOSOPHY  AS  POLITICS    63 

of  individuals.  But  morals  grow  out  of  politics ; 
justice  is  essentially  a  political  relation.  And 
taking  the  state  as  a  whole,  it  is  clear  that  noth- 
ing is  "good"  unless  it  works;  that  it  would  be 
absurd  to  say  that  justice  demands  of  a  state  that 
it  should  be  ordered  in  such  a  way  as  to  make 
for  its  own  decay.  Social  organization  must  be 
effective ;  and  lies  and  class-divisions  are  justified 
if  they  make  for  the  effectiveness  of  a  political 
order.  Surely  social  effectiveness  forbids  that 
men  fit  to  legislate  should  live  out  their  lives  as 
cobblers,  or  that  men  should  rule  whose  natural 
aptitude  is  for  digging  ditches.  Justice  means, 
for  politics  at  least,  that  each  member  of  society 
is  minding  his  natural  business,  is  doing  that  for 
which  he  is  fitted  by  his  own  natural  capacity. 
Injustice  is  the  encroachment  of  one  part  on  an- 
other; justice  is  the  efficient  functioning  of  each 
part.  Justice,  then,  is  social  coordination  and 
harmony.  It  is  not  "  the  interest  of  the  stronger," 
it  is  the  harmony  of  the  whole.  So  in  the  indi- 
vidual, justice  is  the  harmonious  operation  of  a 
unified  personality ;  each  element  in  one's  nature 
doing  that  which  it  is  fitted  to  do ;  again  it  is 
not  mere  strength  or  forcefulness,  but  harmonious, 
organized  strength ;  it  is  effective  order.  And 
effective  order  demands  a  class  division.  You 
may  mouth  as  you  please  the  delusive  delicacies 
of  democracy  ;  but  classes  you  will  have,  for  men 
will  always  be  some  of  gold  and  some  of  silver 
and  some  of  brass.     And  the  brass  must  not  pass 


64      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

itself  off  as  silver,  nor  the  silver  as  gold.  Give 
the  brass  all  the  time  and  opportunity  in  the 
world,  and  it  will  still  be  brass.  Of  course  brass 
will  not  believe  that  it  is  brass,  but  we  had  better 
make  it  understand  once  for  all  that  it  is  so,  even 
if  we  have  to  tell  a  thousand  lies  to  get  the  truth 
believed. 

And  as  for  variation  and  plasticity,  remember 
that  these  too  are  valueless  except  as  they  make 
for  a  better  society.  They  assuredly  make  for 
change ;  but  change  is  not  betterment.  History 
is  a  chaos  of  variations ;  without  some  organ  for 
their  control  they  cancel  one  another  and  termi- 
nate inevitably  in  futility.  Our  problem  is  not 
how  to  change,  but  how  to  set  our  best  brains  to 
controlling  change  for  the  sake  of  a  finer  life. 

VIII 

The  Future  of  Plato 

There  are  apergus  here,  and  a  bewildering 
wealth  of  suggestions,  which  one  is  tempted  to 
pursue  to  their  ultimate  present  significance.  But 
to  do  that  would  be  to  encroach  too  much  on 
the  subjects  of  later  chapters.  The  vital  thing 
here  is  not  to  accept  or  refute  any  special  element 
in  Plato's  political  philosophy;  it  is  rather  to 
see  how  inextricably  politics  and  philosophy  were 
bound  together  in  his  mind  as  two  sides  of  funda- 
mentally one  endeavor.  Here  is  the  passion  to 
remould  things;   here  is  the  seeing  of  perfection 


PLATO  :     PHILOSOPHY    AS    POLITICS  65 

and  the  will  to  make  perfection ;  here  speaks  out 
for  the  first  time  in  European  history  the  courage 
of  the  intellect  that  not  only  will  perceive  but 
will  remake.     Here  is  a  man  ;   no  dead  academic 
cobweb-weaver,    but    a    masterful,    kingly    soul, 
mixed  up  in  warm  intimacy  with  the  complex 
flow  of  the  life  about  him.     He  paints  Utopia; 
but  at  the  same  time  he  takes  his  own  counsel 
anent  the  importance  of  an  educational  approach 
to  the  social  problem,  and  founds  the  most  famous 
and  influential  university  the  world  has  ever  seen. 
Picture  him  in  the  gardens  and  lecture-halls  of 
his  Academy,  arranging  and  supervising  and  co- 
ordinating, and  turning  out  men  to  whom  nations 
looked  —  and  not  in  vain  —  for  statesmen.     Not 
merely  to  lift  men  up  to  the  beatific  vision  of  uni- 
ties and  perfections,  but  to  teach  them  the  art  of 
creation,  to  fire  them  with  the  ardor  of  a  new 
artistry;    this  he  aimed  to  do,  and  did.     "The 
greatest  works  grow  in  importance,  as  trees  do 
after  the  death  of  the  mortal  men  who  planted 
them."  1     So  grew  the  Republic,  and  the  Academy. 
To  catch  in  a  chapter  the  deep  yet  subtle  spirit 
and  meaning  of  this  "finest   product   of  antiq- 
uity," 2  —  it   is   not   easy.      In   Plato's    Utopia 
there  would  no  doubt  have  been  a  law  against 
writing  so  briefly  on  so  vast  a  phenomenon,  — 
with,  in  this  case,  the  inevitably  consequent  de- 
rangement of  the  Platonic  perspective,  and  the 

1  Edmund  Gosse,  Life  of  Henrik  Ibsen,  p.  100,  note. 
*  Nietzsche,  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  pref. 
F 


66      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL    PROBLEM 

impossibility,  within  such  compass,  of  focussing 
Plato  in  the  political  and  philosophical  meaning 
of  his  time.  One's  feeling  here  is  of  having  dese- 
crated with  small  talk  the  Parthenon  of  philos- 
ophy. Perhaps  as  we  go  on  we  shall  be  able  to 
see  more  clearly  the  still-living  value  of  Plato's 
thought :  in  almost  everything  that  we  shall 
hereinafter  discuss  his  voice  will  be  heard,  even 
though  unnamed.  To-day,  at  last,  he  comes 
again  into  his  own  —  as  in  Renaissance  days  — 
after  centuries  dominated  by  the  influence  of  his 
first  misinterpreter ;  and  generations  bred  on  the 
throned  lukewarmness  of  the  Nicomachean  Ethics 
yield  to  a  generation  that  is  learning  to  feel  the 
hot  constructive  passion  of  the  Republic.  Dead 
these  two  thousand  and  some  hundred  years, 
Plato  belongs  to  the  future. 


CHAPTER  III 

FRANCIS    BACON    AND    THE    SOCIAL    POSSIBILITIES 

OF   SCIENCE 


From  Plato  to  Bacon 

"As  I  read  Plato,"  writes  Professor  Dewey, 
"philosophy  began  with  some  sense  of  its  essen- 
tially political  basis  and  mission  —  a  recognition 
that  its  problems  were  those  of  the  organization 
of  a  just  social  order.  But  it  soon  got  lost  in 
dreams  of  another  world."  !  Plato  and  Aristotle 
are  the  crura  cerebri  of  Europe.  But  in  Aristotle, 
along  with  a  wealth  of  acute  observation  of  men 
and  institutions,  we  find  a  diminishing  interest  in 
reconstruction ;  the  Stagirite  spent  too  much  of 
his  time  in  card-cataloguing  Plato,  and  allowed 
his  imagination  to  become  suffocated  with  logic. 
With  the  Stoics  and  Epicureans  begin  that  alien- 
ation of  ethics  from  politics,  and  that  subordi- 
nation of  philosophy  to  religious  needs,  which  it 
is  part  of  the  task  of  present  thinking  to  undo. 
Alexander  had  conquered  the  Orient,  only  to  have 

1  Influence  of  Darwin  on  Philosophy,  New  York,  1910, 
p.  21. 

67 


68      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

Orientalism  conquer  Greece.  Under  Scholasti- 
cism it  was  the  fate  of  great  minds  to  retrace  worn 
paths  in  the  cage  of  a  system  of  conclusions  deter- 
mined by  external  authority;  and  the  obligation 
to  uphold  the  established  precluded  any  practi- 
cal recognition  of  the  reconstructive  function  of 
thought.  With  the  Renaissance  —  that  Indian 
summer  of  Greek  culture  —  the  dream  of  a  re- 
moulded world  found  voice  again.  Campanella, 
through  the  darkness  of  his  prison  cell,  achieved 
the  vision  of  a  communist  utopia ;  and  other  stu- 
dents of  the  rediscovered  Plato  painted  similar 
pictures.  Indeed  this  reawakening  of  Plato's  in- 
fluence gave  to  the  men  of  the  Renaissance  an 
inspiriting  sense  of  the  wonders  that  lay  potential 
in  organized  intelligence.  Again  men  faced  the 
task  of  replacing  with  a  natural  ethic  the  falling 
authoritarian  sanctions  of  supernatural  reli- 
gion ;  and  for  a  time  one  might  have  hoped  that 
the  thought  of  Socrates  was  to  find  at  last  its  due 
fruition.  But  again  men  lost  themselves  in  the 
notion  of  a  cultured  class  moving  leisurely  over 
the  backs  of  slaves ;  and  perhaps  it  was  well  that 
the  whole  movement  was  halted  by  the  more 
Puritan  but  also  more  democratic  outburst  of  the 
Reformation.  What  the  world  needed  was  a 
method  which  offered  hope  for  the  redemption 
not  of  a  class,  but  of  all.  Galileo  and  Roger  Bacon 
opened  the  way  to  meeting  this  need  by  their 
emphasis  on  the  value  of  hypothesis  and  experi- 
ment, and  the  necessity  of  combining  induction 


THE    POSSIBILITIES   OF   SCIENCE  69 

with  deduction ;  it  remained  for  Francis  Bacon 
to  lay  out  the  road  for  the  organized  employment 
of  these  new  methods,  and  to  inspire  all  Europe 
with  his  warm  vision  of  their  social  possibilities. 


II 

Character 

If  you  would  understand  Bacon,  you  must  see 
him  as  not  so  much  a  philosopher  as  an  adminis- 
trator. You  find  him  a  man  of  great  practical 
ability :  he  remoulds  philosophy  with  one  hand 
and  rules  part  of  England  with  the  other ;  not  to 
speak  of  writing  Shakespeare's  plays  between 
times  !  He  rises  brilliantly  from  youthful  penury 
to  the  political  pinnacle ;  and  meanwhile  he  runs 
over  the  whole  realm  of  human  knowledge,  scatter- 
ing praise  and  censure  with  lordly  hand.  Did  we 
not  know  the  fact  as  part  of  the  history  of  Eng- 
land we  should  never  suspect  that  the  detailed 
and  varied  learning  of  this  man  was  the  incidental 
accomplishment  of  a  life  busied  with  political  in- 
trigue. Bene  vixit  qui  bene  latuit:  surely  here  is 
a  man  who  has  lived  widely,  and  in  no  merely 
physical  sense  has  made  the  world  his  home. 
Life  is  no  "brief  candle"  to  him,  nor  men  "such 
stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of";  life  is  a  glorious 
gift,  big  with  blessing  for  him  who  will  but  assist 
at  the  delivery.  There  is  nothing  of  the  timid 
ascetic  about  him;   like  Socrates,  he  knows  that 


70      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

there  is  a  sort  of  cowardice  in  shunning  pleasure ; x 
best  of  all,  there  is  so  much  work  to  be  done,  so 
many  opportunities  for  the  man  of  unnarrowed 
soul.  He  feels  the  exhilaration  of  one  who  has 
burst  free  from  the  shackles  of  intellectual  au- 
thority :  he  sees  before  him  an  uncharted  future, 
raw  material  for  hands  that  dare  to  mould  it; 
and  he  dares.  All  his  life  long  he  is  mixed  up 
with  the  heart  of  things ;  every  day  is  an  adven- 
ture. Exiled  from  politics  he  plunges  gladly  into 
the  field  of  scientific  reconstruction ;  he  does  not 
forget  that  he  is  an  administrator,  any  more  than 
Plato  could  forget  that  he  was  a  dramatist;  he 
finds  the  world  of  thought  a  chaos,  and  bequeaths 
it  a  planful  process  for  the  coordination  of  human 
life;  all  Europe  responds  to  his  call  for  the  "en- 
larging of  the  bounds  of  human  empire."  He 
works  joyfully  and  buoyantly  to  the  very  last,  and 
dies  as  he  has  wished,  "in  an  earnest  pursuit, 
which  is  like  one  that  is  wounded  in  hot  blood, 
who,  for  the  time,  scarce  feels  the  hurt." 

Ill 

The  Expurgation  of  the  Intellect 

Consider  the  reaction  of  an  experienced  states- 
man who  leaves  the  service  of  a  king  to  enter  the 
service  of  truth.  He  has  left  a  field  wherein  all 
workers  moved  in  subordination  to  one  head  and 
one  focal  purpose ;  he  enters  a  field  in  which  each 

1  Cf.  De  Augmentis,  bk.  viii,  ch.  2. 


THE    POSSIBILITIES    OF    SCIENCE  71 

worker  is  working  by  himself,  with  no  division  of 
labor,  no  organization  of  endeavor,  no  correla- 
tion of  ends.  There  he  has  found  administration, 
here  he  finds  a  nai've  laissez-faire;  there  order, 
here  anarchy ;  there  some  sense  of  common  end 
and  effort,  here  none.  He  understands  at  once  the 
low  repute  of  philosophy  among  men  of  affairs. 
"For  the  people  are  very  apt  to  contemn  truth, 
upon  account  of  the  controversies  raised  about  it ; 
and  so  think  those  all  in  a  wrong  way,  who  never 
meet."  x  He  understands  at  once  why  it  is  that 
the  world  has  been  so  little  changed  by  specula- 
tion and  research.  He  is  a  man  whose  conscious- 
ness of  pervasive  human  misery  is  too  sharp  for 
comfort ; 2  and  he  sees  no  hope  of  remedy  for 
this  in  isolated  guerilla  attacks  waged  upon  the 
merest  outposts  of  truth,  each  attack  with  its 
jealously  peculiar  strategy,  its  own  dislocated, 
almost  irrelevant  end.  And  yet  if  there  is  no 
remedy  for  men's  ills  in  this  nascent  science  and 
renascent  philosophy,  in  what  other  quarter,  then, 
shall  men  look  for  hope  and  cure? 

There  is  no  other,  Bacon  feels ;  unless  victory 
is  first  won  in  the  laboratory  and  the  study  it 
will  never  be  won  in  political  assemblies ;  no 
plebiscite  or  royal  edict,  but  only  truth,  can  make 
men  free.  Man's  hope  lies  in  the  reorganization 
of  the  processes  of  discovery  and  interpretation. 

1  Advancement  of  Learning,  Boston,  1863,  bk.  i. 
1  Philosophical    Works,   ed.   J.    M.    Robertson,      London, 
1805,  p.  33. 


72      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

Unless  philosophy  and  science  be  born  again  of 
social  aims  and  social  needs  they  cannot  have  life 
in  them.     A  new  spirit  must  enter. 

But  first  old  spirits  must  be  exorcised.  Specu- 
lation and  research  must  bring  out  a  declaration 
of  independence  against  theology.  "The  corrup- 
tion of  philosophy  by  superstition  and  an  admix- 
ture of  theology  is  .  .  .  widely  spread,  and  does 
the  greatest  harm."  l  The  search  for  final  causes, 
for  design  in  nature,  must  be  left  to  theologians ; 
the  function  of  science  is  not  to  interpret  the  pur- 
poses of  nature,  but  to  discover  the  connections 
of  cause  and  effect  in  nature.  Dogma  must  be 
set  aside:  "if  a  man  will  begin  with  certainties 
he  shall  end  in  doubts ;  but  if  he  will  be  content 
to  begin  in  doubts  he  shall  end  in  certainties."  2 
Dogma  must  be  set  aside,  too,  because  it  necessi- 
tates deduction  as  a  basic  method ;  and  deduc- 
tion as  a  basic  method  is  disastrous. 

But  that  is  not  all ;  there  is  much  more  in  the 
way  of  preliminaries :  there  must  be  a  general 
"expurgation  of  the  intellect."  The  mind  is  full 
(some  would  say  made  up)  of  prejudices,  wild 
fancies,  "idols,"  or  imaginings  of  things  that  are 
not  so :  if  you  are  to  think  correctly,  usefully, 
all  these  must  go.  Try,  then,  to  get  as  little  of 
yourself  as  possible  in  the  way  of  the  thing  you 
wish  to  see.  Beware  of  the  very  general  tendency 
to  put  order  and  regularity  in  the  world  and  then 

1  Novum  Organum,  i,  65. 

3  Advancement  of  Learning,  p.  133. 


THE    POSSIBILITIES   OF   SCIENCE  73 

to  suppose  that  they  are  native  to  the  structure 
of  things  ;  or  to  force  all  facts  into  the  unyielding 
mould  of  a  preconceived  opinion,  carefully  neglect- 
ing all  contrary  instances ;  or  to  give  too  credu- 
lous an  ear  to  that  which  flatters  the  wish.  Look 
into  yourself  and  see  the  forest  of  prejudices  that 
has  grown  up  within  you :  through  your  tem- 
peramental attitudes ;  through  your  education  ; 
through  your  friends  (friendship  is  so  often  an 
agreement  in  prejudices) ;  through  your  favorite 
authors  and  authorities.  If  you  find  yourself 
seizing  and  dwelling  on  anything  with  particular 
satisfaction,  hold  it  in  suspicion.  Beware  of 
words,  for  they  are  imposed  according  to  the  ap- 
prehension of  the  crowd  ;  make  sure  that  you  do 
not  take  abstractions  for  things.  And  remind 
yourself  occasionally  that  you  are  not  the  measure 
of  all  things,  but  their  distorting  mirror. 

So  much  by  way  of  clearing  the  forest.  Comes 
then  induction  as  the  fount  and  origin  of  all 
truth :  patient  induction,  obedient  to  the  call  of 
fact,  and  with  watchful  eye  for,  above  all  things, 
the  little  unwelcome  instance  that  contradicts. 
Not  that  induction  is  everything;  it  includes 
experiment,  of  course,  and  is  punctuated  by  hy- 
pothesis.1 (More,  it  is  clearly  but  the  servant  of 
deduction,  since  the  aim  of  all  science  is  to  pre- 
dict by  deduction  from  generalizations  formed  by 
induction  ;  but  just  as  clear  is  it  that  the  efficacy 
of  the  whole  business  lies  grounded  in  the  faith- 

i  Called  by  Bacon  the  "first  vintage." 


74      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

fulness  of  the  induction :  induction  is  servant, 
but  it  has  all  men  at  its  mercy.)  And  to  formu- 
late methods  of  induction,  to  surround  the  process 
by  mechanical  guards,  to  protect  it  from  the  pre- 
mature flights  of  young  generalizations,  —  that  is 
a  matter  of  life  and  death  to  science. 

IV 

Knowledge  is  Power 

And  now,  armed  with  these  methods  of  pro- 
cedure, we  stand  face  to  face  with  nature.  What 
shall  we  ask  her?  Prudens  questio  dimidium 
scientice:  to  know  what  to  ask  is  half  of  every 
science. 

You  must  ask  for  laws,  —  or,  to  use  a  Platonic 
term,  forms.  In  every  process  there  is  matter  and 
there  is  form :  the  matter  being  the  seat  of  the 
process  or  operation,  and  the  form  its  method  or 
law.  "Though  in  nature  nothing  really  exists 
besides  individual  bodies,  performing  pure  indi- 
vidual acts,  according  to  a  fixed  law,  yet  in  philoso- 
phy the  very  law,  and  the  investigation,  discovery, 
and  explanation  of  it,  is  the  foundation  as  well  of 
knowledge  as  of  operation.  And  it  is  this  law, 
with  its  clauses,  that  I  mean  when  I  speak  of 
Forms."  r  Not  so  much  what  a  "thing"  is,  but 
how  it  behaves ;  —  that  is  the  question.  And 
what  is  more,  if  you  will  examine  your  concep- 
tion of  a  "thing,"  you  will  see  that  it  is  really  a 

1  Novum  Organum,  ii,  2. 


THE    POSSIBILITIES   OF   SCIENCE  75 

conception  of  how  the  "thing"  behaves;  every 
What  is  at  last  a  How.  Every  "thing"  is  a  ma- 
chine, whose  essence  or  meaning  is  to  be  found 
not  by  a  mere  description  of  its  parts,  but  by  an 
account  of  how  it  operates.  "  How  does  it  work  ?  " 
asks  the  boy  before  a  machine  ;  see  to  it  that  you 
ask  the  same  question  of  nature. 

For  observe,  if  you  know  how  a  thing  works, 
you  are  on  the  way  to  managing  and  controlling 
it.  Indeed,  a  Form  can  be  defined  as  those  ele- 
ments in  a  process  which  must  be  known  before 
the  process  can  be  controlled.  Here  we  see  the 
meaning  of  science  ;  it  is  an  effort  to  discover  the 
laws  which  must  be  known  in  order  "that  the 
mind  may  exercise  her  power  over  the  nature  of 
things."1  Science  is  the  formulation  of  control ; 
knowledge  is  power.  The  object  of  science  is  not 
merely  to  know,  but  to  rebuild ;  every  science 
longs  to  be  an  art.  The  quest  for  knowledge, 
then,  is  not  a  matter  of  curiosity,  it  is  a  fight  for 
power.  We  "put  nature  on  the  rack  and  compel 
her  to  bear  witness"  against  herself.  Where  this 
conception  reigns,  logic-chopping  is  out  of  court. 
"The  end  of  our  new  logic  is  to  find  not  arguments 
but  arts;  .  .  .  not  probable  reasons  but  plans 
and  designs  of  works ;  ...  to  overcome  not  an 
adversary  in  argument  but  nature  in  action."  2 

But  there  is  logic-chopping  in  other  things  than 
logic.     All  strife  of  men  with  men,  of  group  with 

1  Preface  to  Magna  Instauratio. 
*  Novum  Organum,  pref. 


76      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

group,  if  it  leaves  no  result  beyond  the  victory 
and  passing  supremacy  of  the  individual  or  group, 
is  logic-chopping.  Such  victories  pass  from  side 
to  side,  and  cancel  themselves  into  final  nullity. 
Real  achievement  is  victory,  not  over  other  men 
but  with  them.  "It  will  not  be  amiss  to  distin- 
guish the  three  kinds,  and  as  it  were  grades,  of 
ambition  in  mankind.  The  first  is  of  those  who 
desire  to  extend  their  own  power  in  their  native 
country;  which  kind  is  vulgar  and  degenerate. 
The  second  is  of  those  who  labor  to  extend  the 
power  of  their  country  and  its  dominion  among 
men.  This  certainly  has  more  dignity,  though 
not  less  covetousness.  But  if  a  man  endeavor  to 
establish  and  extend  the  power  and  dominion  of 
the  human  race  over  the  universe,  his  ambition 
is  without  doubt  both  a  more  wholesome  thing 
and  a  more  noble  than  the  other  two.  The  empire 
of  man  over  things  depends  wholly  on  the  arts 
and  sciences.  For  we  cannot  command  nature 
except  by  obeying  her."  x 

V 

The  Socialization  of  Science 

Natura  non  vincitur  nisi  parendo.  "I  accept 
the  universe,"  says  Margaret  Fuller.  "Gad! 
you'd  better!"  says  Carlyle.  I  accept  it,  says 
Bacon,  but  only  as  raw  material.  We  will 
listen  to  nature,  but   only  that  we  may  learn 

1  Novum  Organum,  i,  129. 


THE    POSSIBILITIES   OF   SCIENCE  77 

what  language  she  understands.    We  stoop  to 
conquer. 

There  is  nothing  impossible  but  thinking  makes 
it  so.  "By  far  the  greatest  obstacle  to  the  pro- 
gress of  science  and  the  undertaking  of  new 
tasks  ...  is  found  in  this,  that  men  despair  and 
think  things  impossible.  ...  If  therefore  any 
one  believes  or  promises  more,  they  think  this 
comes  of  an  ungoverned  and  unripened  mind."  1 
There  is  nothing  that  we  may  not  do,  if  we  will, 
but  we  must  will ;  and  must  will  the  means  as 
well  as  the  end.  Would  we  have  an  empire  of 
man  over  nature  ?  Very  well :  organize  the  arts 
and  sciences. 

"Consider  what  may  be  expected  from  men 
abounding  in  leisure,  and  from  association  of 
labors,  and  from  successions  of  ages ;  the  rather 
because  it  is  not  a  way  over  which  only  one  man 
can  pass  at  a  time  (as  is  the  case  with  that  of 
reasoning),  but  within  which  the  labors  and  in- 
dustries of  men  (especially  as  regards  the  collecting 
of  experience)  may  with  the  best  effort  be  distrib- 
uted and  then  combined.  For  then  only  will  men 
begin  to  know  their  strength  when  instead  of 
great  numbers  doing  all  the  same  things,  one 
shall  take  charge  of  one  thing  and  another  of  an- 
other." 2  There  should  be  more  cooperation,  less 
chaotic  rivalry,  in  research.  And  the  cooperation 
should  be  international ;   the  various  universities 

«  Ibid.,  i,  92. 
"  Ibid.,  i,  113. 


78      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

of  the  world,  so  far  as  they  engage  in  research, 
should  be  like  the  different  buildings  of  a  great 
manufacturing  plant,  each  with  its  own  particular 
specialty  and  quest.  Is  it  not  remarkable  how 
"little  sympathy  and  correspondence  exists  be- 
tween colleges  and  universities,  as  well  through- 
out Europe  as  in  the  same  state  and  kingdom?"  1 
Why  cannot  all  the  research  in  the  world  be  co- 
ordinated into  one  unified  advance?  Perhaps 
the  truth-seekers  would  be  unwilling ;  but  has 
that  been  shown?  And  is  the  number  of  willing 
cooperators  too  small  to  warrant  further  effort? 
How  can  we  know  without  the  trial  ?  Grant  that 
the  genius  would  balk  at  some  external  central 
direction  ;  but  research  after  all  is  seldom  a  matter 
of  genius.  "The  course  I  propose  ...  is  such 
as  leaves  but  little  to  the  acuteness  and  strength 
of  wits,  but  places  all  wits  and  understandings 
nearly  on  the  level."  2  Let  scope  and  freedom 
be  amply  provided  for  the  genius ;  it  is  the  work 
of  following  up  the  apergus  of  genius  that  most 
sorely  needs  coordination.  Organization  of  re- 
search means  really  the  liberation  of  genius : 
liberation  from  the  halting  necessities  of  mechani- 
cal repetition  in  experiment.  Nor  is  coordination 
regimentation ;  let  each  man  follow  his  hobby  to 
whatever  university  has  been  assigned  to  the  in- 
vestigation of  that  particular  item.  Liberty  is 
futility  unless  it  is  organized. 

1  Advancement  of  Learning,  bk.  ii,  ch.  1. 

2  Novum  Organum,  i,  61. 


THE    POSSIBILITIES   OF   SCIENCE  79 

It  is  a  plan,  you  see,  for  the  socialization  of 
science.  It  is  a  large  and  royal  vision  ;  to  make 
it  real  involves  "indeed  opera  basilica,"  it  is  the 
business  of  a  king,  "towards  which  the  endeavors 
of  one  man  can  be  but  as  the  sign  on  a  cross-road, 
which  points  out  the  way  but  cannot  tread  it."  1 
It  will  need  such  legislative  appropriations  as  are 
now  granted  only  to  the  business  of  competitive 
destruction  on  land  and  sea.  "As  the  secretaries 
and  spies  of  princes  and  states  bring  in  bills  for 
intelligence,  so  you  must  allow  the  spies  and 
intelligencers  of  nature  to  bring  in  their  bills  if 
you  would  not  be  ignorant  of  many  things  worthy 
to  be  known.  And  if  Alexander  placed  so  large 
a  treasure  at  Aristotle's  command  for  the  support 
of  hunters,  fowlers,  fishers  and  the  like,  in  much 
more  need  do  they  stand  of  this  beneficence  who 
unfold  the  labyrinths  of  nature."  2 

VI 

Science  and  Utopia 

Such  an  organization  of  science  is  Bacon's 
notion  of  Utopia.  He  gives  us  in  The  New 
Atlantis,  in  plain  strong  prose,  a  picture  of  a 
state  in  which  this  organization  has  reached  the 
national  stage.  It  is  a  state  nominally  ruled  by  a 
king  (Bacon  never  forgets  that  he  is  a  loyal  sub- 
ject and  counsellor  of  James  I) ;  but  "  preeminent 

1  Advancement  of  Learning,  bk.  i,  ch.  1. 
*Ibid.,  bk.  ii,  ch.  1. 


80      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

amongst  the  excellent  acts  of  the  king  .  .  .  was 
the  erection  and  institution  of  an  Order  or  Society 
which  we  call  Solomon's  House ;  the  noblest 
foundation,  as  we  think,  that  ever  was  upon  the 
earth,  and  the  lantern  of  this  kingdom.  It  is  dedi- 
cated to  the  study  of  the  nature  of  all  things."  1 
Every  twelve  years  this  Order  sends  out  to  all 
parts  of  the  world  "merchants  of  light";  men 
who  remain  abroad  for  twelve  years,  gather  in- 
formation and  suggestions  in  every  field  of  art 
and  science,  and  then  (the  next  expedition  having 
brought  men  to  replace  them)  return  home  laden 
with  books,  instruments,  inventions,  and  ideas. 
"Thus,  you  see,  we  maintain  a  trade  not  for  gold, 
silver  or  jewels ;  nor  for  silk ;  nor  for  spices ;  nor 
for  any  other  commodity  or  matter;  but  only 
for  God's  first  creation,  which  was  Light." 2 
Meanwhile  at  home  there  is  a  busy  army  filling 
many  laboratories,  experimenting  in  zoology, 
medicine,  dietetics,  chemistry,  botany,  physics, 
and  other  fields;  there  are,  in  addition  to  these 
men,  "three  that  collect  the  experiments  in  all 
the  books ;  .  .  .  three  that  try  new  experiments  " ; 
three  that  tabulate  the  results  of  the  experiment- 
ers; "three  that  look  into  the  experiments  of 
their  fellows,  and  cast  about  how  to  draw  out  of 
them  things  of  use  ...  for  man's  life ;  .  .  .  three 
that  direct  new  experiments  " ;  three  that  from 
the  results  draw  up  "observations,  axioms,  and 

1  New  Atlantis,  Cambridge  University  Press,  1900,  p.  22. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  24. 


THE    POSSIBILITIES   OF   SCIENCE  81 

aphorisms."1  "We  imitate  also  the  flights  of 
birds ;  we  have  some  degree  of  flying  in  the  air ; 
we  have  ships  and  boats  for  going  under  water."  2 
And  the  purpose  of  it  all,  he  says,  with  fine  Ba- 
conian ring,  is  "the  enlarging  of  the  bounds  of 
human  empire,  to  the  effecting  of  all  things 
possible."  3 

VII 

Scholasticism  in  Science 

This  is  the  voice  of  the  Renaissance,  speaking 
with  some  method  to  its  music.  It  is  the  voice 
of  Erasmus  rather  than  that  of  Luther ;  but  it  is 
the  voice  of  a  larger  and  less  class-bound  vision 
than  that  which  moved  the  polite  encomiast  of 
folly.  Such  minds  as  were  not  lost  in  the  religious 
turmoil  of  the  time  responded  to  Bacon's  call  for 
a  new  beginning;  a  "sense  of  liberation,  ...  of 
new  destinies,  pulsates  in  that  generation  at 
Bacon's  touch."  4  Bacon  says,  and  with  justice, 
that  he  "rang  the  bell  which  called  the  wits  to- 
gether." B  When,  in  1660,  a  group  of  London 
savants  formed  the  Royal  Society,  it  was  from 
Bacon  that  they  took  their  inspiration,  and  from 
the  "House  of  Solomon"   part  of  their  plan  of 

» Pp.  44,  45. 
5  P.  43. 
» P.  34. 

4  J.  M.  Robertson,  preface  to  Philosophical  Works. 
•Robert  Adamson,  article  "Bacon,"  Encyclopaedia  Britan- 
nica. 

a 


82      PHILOSOPHY   AND    THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

organization.  Diderot  and  D'Alembert  acknowl- 
edged the  impetus  given  by  their  reading  of  Bacon 
to  the  adventurous  enterprise  which  completed 
and  distributed  the  Encyclopedic  despite  the  pro- 
hibition of  the  king.  To-day,  after  two  hundred 
years  of  Cartesian  futility  about  mind  and  body 
and  the  problem  of  knowledge,  the  Baconian 
emphasis  on  the  socially-reconstructive  func- 
tion of  thought  renews  its  power  and  appeal. 
The  world  returns  to  Socrates,  to  Plato,  and 
to  Bacon. 

But  with  some  measure  of  wholesome  disillu- 
sionment. These  last  two  centuries  have  told  us 
that  science,  unaided,  cannot  solve  our  social 
problem.  We  have  invented,  invented,  invented, 
invented ;  and  with  what  result  ?  The  gap  be- 
tween class  and  class  has  so  widened  during  these 
inventive  years  that  there  are  now  not  classes 
but  castes.  Social  harmony  is  a  matter  of  brief 
interludes  in  a  drama  more  violent  than  any  ever 
mimicked  on  the  stage.  Men  trained  and  ac- 
complished in  science,  like  Prince  Kropotkin, 
abandon  it  on  the  score  that  it  has  turned  its 
back  on  the  purpose  that  gave  it  vitality  and 
worth.1 

What  is  the  purpose  of  science?  What  do 
scientists  consider  to  be  the  purpose  of  science? 
The  laboratories  are  crowded  with  men  who  have 
no  inkling  of  any  other  than  a  purely  material 
reconstruction  as  the  function  of  their  growing 

1  Cf .  preface  to  Memoirs  of  a  Revolutionist. 


THE    POSSIBILITIES   OF   SCIENCE  83 

knowledge.  Specialization  has  so  divided  science 
that  hardly  any  sense  of  the  whole  survives.  The 
ghosts  of  scholasticism  —  of  a  pursuit  of  knowl- 
edge divorced  from  its  social  end  —  hover  about 
the  microscopes  and  test-tubes  of  the  scientific 
world ;  and  the  upshot  of  it  all  is  that  to  them 
who  have,  more  is  given.  Let  Bacon  speak  here : 
"There  is  another  great  and  powerful  cause  why 
the  sciences  have  made  but  little  progress,  which 
is  this.  It  is  not  possible  to  run  a  course  aright, 
when  the  goal  itself  has  not  been  rightly  placed."  l 
Sciences  with  obvious  social  functions  have  lan- 
guished through  lapse  of  all  sense  of  direction,  all 
feeling  of  focus;  psychology,  for  example,  is  but 
now  reviving  under  the  stimulus  of  men  who 
dared  to  "stir  the  earth  a  little  about  the  roots 
of  this  science,"  2  because  they  had  perceived  its 
purpose  and  meaning  in  the  drama  of  reconstruc- 
tion. The  blunt  truth  is  that  unless  a  scientist 
is  also  a  philosopher,  with  some  capacity  to  see 
things  sub  specie  totius,  —  unless  he  can  come 
out  of  his  hole  into  the  open,  —  he  is  not  fit  to 
direct  his  own  research.  "  As  no  perfect  discovery 
can  be  made  upon  a  flat  or  level,  neither  is  it 
possible  to  discover  the  more  remote  and  deeper 
parts  of  any  science,  if  you  stand  but  upon  the 
level  of  the  same  science,  and  ascend  not  to  a 
higher  science."  3     Before  it  can  be  of  real  ser- 

1  Novum  Organum,  i,  81. 

*  Advancement  of  Learning,  p.  297. 

» Ibid.,  p.  131. 


84      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL    PROBLEM 

vice  to  life,  science  must  be  enlightened  by 
some  discrimination  of  values,  some  considera- 
tion and  fitting  together  of  human  ends :  with- 
out philosophy  as  its  eye  piece,  science  is  but 
the  traditional  child  who  has  taken  apart  the 
traditional  watch,  with  none  but  the  traditional 
results. 

There  is  more  to  this  indictment.  Science  has 
been  organized,  though  very  imperfectly,  for  re- 
search ;  it  has  been  organized  hardly  at  all  for 
social  application  and  control.  The  notion  that 
science  can  be  used  in  conserving  the  vital  ele- 
ments of  order  and  at  the  same  time  facilitating 
experimental  and  progressive  change,  is  but  be- 
ginning to  walk  about.  Indeed,  the  employment 
and  direction  of  scientific  ability  in  the  business  of 
government  is  still  looked  upon  as  a  doubtful  pro- 
cedure ;  to  say  that  the  administration  of  muni- 
cipal affairs,  for  example,  is  to  be  given  over  to 
men  trained  in  the  social  sciences  rather  than  to 
men  artful  in  trapping  votes  with  oratorical 
molasses,  is  still  a  venture  into  the  loneliness  of 
heresy.  Again  let  Bacon  speak,  who  was  admin- 
istrator and  philosopher  in  one.  "It  is  wrong  to 
trust  the  natural  body  to  empirics  who  commonly 
have  a  few  receipts  whereon  they  rely,  but  who 
know  neither  the  causes  of  the  disease,  nor  the 
constitution  of  patients,  nor  the  danger  of  acci- 
dents, nor  the  true  methods  of  cure.  And  so  it 
must  needs  be  dangerous  to  have  the  civil  body 
of  states  managed  by  empirical  statesmen,  unless 


THE    POSSIBILITIES   OF   SCIENCE  85 

well  mixed  with  others  who  are  grounded  in  learn- 
ing. On  the  contrary  it  is  almost  without  in- 
stance that  any  government  was  unprosperous 
under  learned  governors."  l 

Plato  over  again,  you  say.  Yes;  just  as 
"Greek  philosophy  is  the  dough  with  which 
modern  philosophers  have  baked  their  bread, 
kneading  it  over  and  over  again,"  2  so  this  vital 
doctrine  of  the  application  of  the  best  available 
intelligence  to  the  problem  of  social  order  and 
development  must  be  restated  in  every  genera- 
tion until  at  last  the  world  may  see  its  truth  and 
merit  exemption  from  its  repetition. 

VIII 

The  Asiatics  of  Europe 

But  the  place  of  Bacon  in  the  continuum  of 
history  is  hardly  stated  by  connecting  him  with 
Plato.  Conceive  of  him  rather  as  a  new  pro- 
tagonist in  the  long  epic  of  intelligence ;  another 
blow  struck  in  the  seemingly  endless  war  between 
magic  and  science,  between  supernaturalism  and 
naturalism,  between  the  spirit  of  worship  and  the 
spirit  of  control.  Primitive  man  —  and  he  lives 
everywhere  under  the  name  of  legion  —  looks  out 
upon  nature  as  something  to  be  feared  and  obeyed, 
something  to  be  cajoled  by  ritual  and  sacrifice  and 
prayer.     In  ages  of  great  social  disorder,  such  as 

1  Advancement  of  Learning.,  bk.  i. 

J  Professor  Woodbridge,  class-lectures. 


86      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

the  millennium  inaugurated  in  Western  Europe 
by  the  barbarian  invasions,  the  primitive  ele- 
ments in  the  mental  make-up  of  men  emerge 
through  the  falling  cultural  surface;  and  cults 
rich  in  ritual  and  steeped  in  emotional  luxury- 
grow  in  rank  abundance.  It  is  in  the  character 
of  man  to  worship  power :  if  he  feels  the  power 
without  him  more  intensely  than  the  power 
within,  he  worships  nature  with  a  humble  fear, 
and  leans  on  magic  and  supernatural  rewards; 
if  he  feels  the  power  within  him  more  intensely 
than  the  power  without,  he  sees  divinity  in  him- 
self and  other  centres  of  remoulding  activity,  and 
thinks  not  of  worshipping  and  obeying  nature, 
but  of  controlling  and  commanding  her.  The 
second  attitude  comes,  of  course,  with  knowledge, 
and  action  that  expresses  knowledge ;  it  is  quite 
human  that  nature  should  not  be  worshipped 
once  she  has  been  known.  A  man  is  primitive, 
then,  when  he  worships  nature  and  makes  no 
effort  to  control  her ;  he  is  mature  when  he  stops 
worshipping  and  begins  to  control,  —  when  he 
understands  that  "Nature  is  not  a  temple  but  a 
workshop,"  *  not  a  barrier  to  divinity,  but  the 
raw  material  of  Utopia. 

Now  the  essence  of  Bacon  is  not  the  replace- 
ment of  deduction  by  induction,  but  the  change 
of  emphasis  from  worship  to  control.  This  em- 
phasis, once  vivid  in  Plato  but  soon  obscured  by 
Oriental  influence,  is  one  of  the  two  dominant 

1  Turgenev,  in  Fathers  and  Children. 


THE    POSSIBILITIES   OF   SCIENCE  87 

elements  in  modern  thought  (the  other  being  the 
puzzling  over  an  artificial  problem  of  knowledge)  ; 
and  unless  the  Baconian  element  finally  subordi- 
nates the  Cartesian,  the  word  modern  must 
no  longer  arrogate  to  itself  a  eulogistic  connota- 
tion. Hence  Bacon,  and  not  Descartes,  is  the 
initiator  of  modern  philosophy ;  part  initiator,  at 
least,  of  that  current  of  thought  which  finds 
rebellious  expression  in  the  enlightenment  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  comes  to  supremacy  in 
the  scientific  victories  of  the  nineteenth.  The 
vital  sequence  in  modern  philosophy  is  not  Des- 
cartes, Berkeley,  Kant,  Hegel,  and  Bergson 
(for  these  are  the  Asiatics  of  Europe),  but 
Bacon,  Hobbes,  Condorcet,  Comte,  Darwin,  and 
James.1 

The  hope  of  the  world  is  in  this  resolute  spirit 
of  control,  —  control  of  the  material  without  us, 
and  of  the  passions  within.  Bit  by  bit,  one  is 
not  afraid  to  say,  we  shall  make  for  ourselves  a 
better  world.  Shall  we  not  find  a  way  to  elim- 
inate disease,  to  control  the  increase  of  popu- 
lation, to  find  in  plastic  organization  a  substitute 
for  revolution?  Shall  we  perhaps  even  succeed 
in  transmuting  the  lust  for  power  over  man  into 
ambition  to  conquer  the  forces  that  impede  man  ? 
Shall  we  make  men  understand  that  there  is  more 

1  This  division  into  saints  and  sinners  must  be  taken  with 
reservations,  of  course.  In  many  respects  Descartes  belongs 
to  the  second  group,  and  in  some  respects  James  and  Comt© 
belong  to  the  first.  But  the  dichotomy  clarifies,  if  only  by 
exaggeration. 


88      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

potency  of  joy  in  the  sense  of  having  contributed 
to  the  power  of  men  over  nature  than  in  any  per- 
sonal triumph  of  one  over  another  man  ?  —  more 
glory  in  a  conquest  of  bacteria  than  in  all  the 
martial  victories  that  have  ever  spilled  human 
blood  ?  Here  is  the  beginning  of  real  civilization, 
and  the  mark  of  man.  "The  environment  trans- 
forms the  animal;  man  transforms  the  environ- 
ment." *  "Looking  at  the  history  of  the  world 
as  a  whole,  the  tendency  has  been  in  Europe  to 
subordinate  nature  to  man;  out  of  Europe,  to 
subordinate  man  to  nature.  Formerly  the  richest 
countries  were  those  in  which  nature  was  most 
bountiful ;  now  the  richest  countries  are  those  in 
which  man  is  most  active."  2  Control  is  the  sign 
of  maturity,  the  achievement  of  Europe,  the  future 
of  America.  It  is,  one  argues  again,  the  drama 
of  history,  this  war  between  Asia  and  Europe, 
between  nature  and  man,  between  worship  and 
control.  Fundamentally  it  is  the  upward  struggle 
of  intelligence  :  Plato  is  its  voice,  Zeno  its  passing 
exhaustion,  Bacon  its  resurrection.  It  was  not 
an  unopposed  rebirth :  there  is  still  no  telling 
whether  East  or  West  will  win.  Surrounded  by 
the  backwash  of  Oriental  currents  everywhere, 
the  lover  of  the  Baconian  spirit  needs  constantly 
to  refresh  himself  at  the  fount  of  Bacon's  inex- 
haustible inspiration  and  confidence.  "I  stake 
all,"  he  says,  "on  the  victory  of  art  over  nature 

1  L.  Ward,  Pure  Sociology,  p.  16. 

5  Buckle,  History  of  Civilization,  i,  138. 


THE    POSSIBILITIES   OF   SCIENCE  89 

in  the  race."  And  one  needs  to  hold  ever  before 
oneself  Bacon's  favorite  device :  A  ship  passing 
through  the  Pillars  of  Hercules  out  into  the  un- 
known sea,  and  over  it  the  words,  Plus  ultra. 
More  beyond  ! 


CHAPTER  IV 

SPINOZA   ON   THE   SOCIAL    PROBLEM  l 

I 

Hobbes 

Passing  from  Bacon  to  Spinoza  we  meet  with 
Thomas  Hobbes,  a  man  from  whom  Spinoza  drew 
many  of  his  ideas,  though  very  little  of  his  inspi- 
ration. The  social  incidence  of  the  greater  part 
of  Hobbes's  thinking  has  long  been  recognized ; 
he  is  not  a  figure  over  whom  the  biographer  of 
social  thought  finds  much  cause  to  quarrel.  He 
is  at  once  the  materialist  par  excellence  of  modern 
philosophy,  and  the  most  uncompromising  protag- 
onist of  the  absolutist  theory  of  the  state.  The 
individual,  all  compact  of  pugnacity,  was  to 
Hobbes  the  bogey  which  the  state,  voracious  of 
all  liberties,  became  two  centuries  later  to  Herbert 
Spencer.  He  had  in  acute  degree  the  philoso- 
pher's natural  appetite  for  order ;  and  trembled 
at  the  thought  of  initiatives  not  foreseen  by  his 
political  geometry.     He   lived    in   the   midst   of 

1  Special  acknowledgment  for  some  of  the  material  of  this 
chapter  is  due  to  R.  A.  Duff,  Spinoza's  Political  and  Ethical 
Philosophy,  Glasgow,  1903. 

90 


SPINOZA    ON    THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM        91 

alarms  :  war  stepped  on  the  heels  of  war  in  what 
was  very  nearly  a  real  helium  omnium  contra 
omnes.  He  lived  in  the  midst  of  political  reaction  : 
men  were  weary  of  Renaissance  exuberance  and 
Reformation  strife,  and  sank  gladly  into  the  open 
arms  of  the  past.  There  could  be  no  end,  thought 
Hobbes,  to  this  turmoil  of  conflicting  egos,  indi- 
vidual and  national,  until  all  groups  and  individ- 
uals knelt  in  absolute  obedience  to  one  sovereign 
power. 

But  all  this  has  been  said  before ;  we  need  but 
remind  ourselves  of  it  here  so  that  we  may  the 
better  appreciate  the  vibrant  sympathy  for  the 
individual  man,  the  generous  defence  of  popular 
liberties,  that  fill  with  the  glow  of  subdued  passion 
the  pages  of  the  gentle  Spinoza. 

II 

The  Spirit  of  Spinoza 

Yet  Spinoza  was  not  wanting  in  that  timidity 
and  that  fear  of  unbridled  instinct  which  stood 
dictator  over  the  social  philosophy  of  Hobbes. 
He  knew  as  well  as  Hobbes  the  dangers  of  a 
democracy  that  could  not  discipline  itself.  "Those 
who  have  had  experience  of  how  changeful  the 
temper  of  the  people  is,  are  almost  in  despair.  For 
the  populace  is  governed  not  by  reason  but  by 
emotion  ;  it  is  headlong  in  everything,  and  easily 
corrupted  by  avarice  and  luxury."  l     And  even 

1  Tractalus  Theologico-polilicue,  ch.  17. 


92      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

more  than  Hobbes  he  withdrew  from  the  affairs 
of  men  and  sought  in  the  protection  of  a  suburban 
attic  the  peace  and  solitude  which  were  the  vital 
medium  of  his  thought.  He  found  that  some- 
times at  least,  "truth  hath  a  quiet  breast."  "Se 
tu  sarai  solo,"  wrote  Leonardo,  "tu  sarai  tutto 
tuo."  And  surely  Goethe  thought  of  Spinoza 
when  he  said:  "No  one  can  produce  anything 
important  unless  he  isolate  himself." 

But  this  dread  of  the  crowd  was  only  a  part  of 
Spinoza's  nature,  and  not  the  dominant  part. 
His  fear  of  men  was  lost  in  his  boundless  capacity 
for  affection ;  he  tried  so  hard  to  understand  men 
that  he  could  not  help  but  love  them.  "I  have 
labored  carefully  not  to  mock,  lament,  or  exe- 
crate, but  to  understand,  human  actions ;  and  to 
this  end  I  have  looked  upon  passions  .  .  .  not 
as  vices  of  human  nature,  but  as  properties  just 
as  pertinent  to  it  as  are  heat,  cold,  storm,  thunder, 
and  the  like  to  the  nature  of  the  atmosphere."  l 
Even  the  accidents  of  time  and  space  were  sinless  to 
his  view,  and  all  the  world  found  room  in  the  abun- 
dance of  his  heart.  "Spinoza  deified  the  All  in 
order  to  find  peace  in  the  face  of  it,"  says  Nietz- 
sche : 2  but  perhaps,  too,  because  all  love  is  deifi- 
cation. 

All  in  all,  history  shows  no  man  more  honest  and 
independent ;  and  the  history  of  philosophy  shows 
no  man  so  sincere,  so  far  above  quibbling  and 

1  Tractatus  Theologico-politicus,  ch.  1. 
1  Will  to  Power,  vol.  i,  §  95. 


SPINOZA   ON   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM        93 

dispute  and  the  picking  of  petty  flaws,  so  eager 
to  receive  the  truth  even  when  brought  by  the 
enemy,  so  ready  to  forgive  even  persecution  in  the 
depth  and  breadth  of  his  tolerance.  No  man  who 
suffered  so  much  injustice  made  so  few  com- 
plaints. He  became  great  because  he  could  merge 
his  own  suffering  in  the  suffering  of  all,  —  a  mark 
of  all  deep  men.  "They  who  have  not  suffered," 
says  Ibsen,  —  and,  one  might  add,  suffered  with 
those  they  saw  suffer,  —  "never  create;  they 
only  write  books." 

Spinoza  did  not  write  much  ;  the  long-suffering 
are  seldom  long-winded.  A  fragment  On  the  Im- 
provement of  the  Understanding ;  a  brief  volume  on 
religion  and  the  state ;  the  Ethics ;  and  as  he  be- 
gan to  write  the  chapter  on  democracy  in  the 
Political  Treatise  consumption  conquered  him. 
Bacteria  take  no  bribes. 

Ill 

Political  Ethics 

Had  he  lived  longer  it  would  have  dawned  per- 
haps even  on  the  German  historians  that  Spinoza's 
basic  interest  was  not  in  metaphysics  so  much  as 
in  political  ethics.  The  Ethics,  because  it  is  the 
most  sustained  flight  of  reasoning  in  philosophy, 
has  gathered  round  it  all  the  associations  that 
throng  about  the  name  of  Spinoza,  so  that  one  is 
apt  to  think  of  him  in  terms  of  a  mystical  "pan- 
theism" rather  than  of  coordinative  intelligence, 


94      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

democracy,  and  free  thought.1  Hoffding  considers 
it  a  defect  in  Spinoza's  philosophy  that  it  takes 
so  little  notice  of  epistemology  :  but  should  we  not 
be  grateful  for  that?  Here  are  men  suffering, 
said  Spinoza,  here  are  men  enslaved  by  passions 
and  prelates  and  kings ;  surely  till  these  things 
are  dealt  with  we  have  no  time  for  epistemological 
delicacies.  Instead  of  increasing  the  world's 
store  of  learned  ignorance  by  writing  tomes  on  the 
possibility  of  a  subject  knowing  an  object,  Spinoza 
thought  it  better  to  give  himself  to  the  task  of 
helping  to  keep  alive  in  an  age  of  tyrannical  re- 
action the  Renaissance  doctrine  of  popular  sover- 
eignty. Instead  of  puzzling  himself  and  others 
about  epistemology  he  pondered  the  problem  of 
stimulating  the  growth  of  intelligence  and  evolv- 
ing a  rational  ethic.  He  thought  that  philosophy 
was  something  more  than  a  chess-game  for  pro- 
fessors. 

There  is  no  need  to  spend  time  and  space  here 
on  what  for  Spinoza,  as  for  Socrates  and  Plato,  was 
the  problem  of  problems,  —  how  human  reason 
could  be  developed  to  a  point  where  it  might  re- 
place supernatural  sanctions  for  social  conduct  and 

1  Cf .  Duff,  op.  cit.,  pref. :  "It  can  be  shown  that  Spinoza 
had  no  interest  in  metaphysics  for  its  own  sake,  while  he  was 
passionately  interested  in  moral  and  political  problems. 
He  was  a  metaphysician  at  all  only  in  the  sense  that  he  was 
resolute  in  thinking  out  the  ideas,  principles,  and  categories 
which  are  interwoven  with  all  our  practical  endeavor,  and 
the  proper  understanding  of  which  is  the  condition  of  human 
welfare." 


SPINOZA   ON   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM        95 

provide  the  medium  of  social  reconstruction. 
One  point,  however,  may  be  profitably  empha- 
sized. 

A  careless  reading  of  the  Ethics  may  lead  to  the 
belief  that  Spinoza  bases  his  philosophy  on  a 
nai've  opposition  of  reason  to  passion.  It  is  not 
so.  "A  desire  cannot  be  restrained  or  removed," 
says  Spinoza,  "except  by  an  opposite  and  stronger 
desire."  1  Reason  is  not  dictator  to  desire,  it  is 
a  relation  among  desires,  —  that  relation  which 
arises  when  experience  has  hammered  impulses 
into  coordination.  An  impulse,  passion  or  emo- 
tion is  by  itself  "a  confused  idea,"  a  blurred  pic- 
ture of  the  thing  that  is  indeed  desired.  Thought 
and  impulse  are  not  two  kinds  of  mental  process : 
thought  is  impulse  clarified  by  experience,  impulse 
is  thought  in  chaos. 

IV 

Is  Man  a  Political  Animal? 

Why  is  there  a  social  problem?  Is  it  because 
men  are  "bad"?  Nonsense,  answers  Spinoza: 
the  terms  "good"  and  "bad,"  as  conveying  moral 
approval  and  disapproval,  are  philosophically 
out  of  court ;  they  mean  nothing  except  that 
"each  of  us  wishes  all  men  to  live  according  to 
his  desire,"  and  consoles  himself  for  their  non- 
complaisance  by  making  moral  phrases.  There 
is  a  social  problem,  says  Spinoza,  because  men  are 

1  Ethics,  bk.  iv,  prop.  7. 


96      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

not  naturally  social.  This  does  not  mean  that 
there  are  no  social  tendencies  in  the  native  human 
constitution ;  it  does  mean  that  these  tendencies 
are  but  a  sorry  fraction  of  man's  original  nature, 
and  do  not  avail  to  chain  the  "ape  and  tiger" 
hiding  under  his  extremely  civilized  shirt.  Man 
is  a  "political  animal"  ;  but  he  is  also  an  animal. 
We  must  approach  the  social  problem  through  a 
very  respectful  consideration  of  the  ape  and  tiger ; 
we  must  follow  Hobbes  and  inquire  into  "the 
natural  condition  of  man." 

"In  the  state  of  nature  every  man  lives  as  he 
wishes,"  l  —  he  is  not  pestered  with  police  regula- 
tions and  aldermanic  ordinances.  He  "may  do 
whatever  he  can :  his  rights  extend  to  the  utmost 
limits  of  his  powers." 2  He  may  fight,  hate, 
deceive,  exploit,  to  his  heart's  desire ;  and  he 
does.  We  moderns  smile  at  the  "natural  man" 
as  a  myth,  and  think  our  forbears  were  social  ab 
initio.  But  be  it  remembered  that  by  "social" 
Spinoza  implies  no  mere  preference  of  society  to 
solitude,  but  a  subordination  of  individual  caprice 
to  more  or  less  tacit  communal  regulation.  And 
Spinoza  considers  it  useful,  if  we  are  going  to  talk 
about  "human  nature  in  politics,"  to  ask  whether 
man  naturally  submits  to  regulation  or  naturally 
rebels  against  it.  When  he  wrote  of  a  primitive 
non-social  human  condition  he  wrote  as  a  psychol- 
ogist inferring  the  past  rather  than  as  an  historian 

1  Tractatus  Theologico-Politicus,  v,  2. 

2  Ibid.,  ch.  16. 


SPINOZA   ON   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM        97 

revealing  it.  He  observed  man,  kindly  yet 
keenly;  he  saw  that  "everyone  desires  to  keep 
down  his  fellow-men  by  all  possible  means,  and 
when  he  prevails,  boasts  more  of  the  injuries  he 
has  done  to  others  than  of  the  advantage  he  has 
won  for  himself" ;  '  and  he  concluded  that  if  we 
could  trace  human  history  to  its  sources  we  should 
find  a  creature  —  call  him  human  or  pre-human  — 
willing,  perhaps  glad,  to  have  the  company  of  his 
like,  but  still  unattracted  and  unhampered  by 
social  organization. 

We  like  to  laugh  at  the  simple  anthropology 
of  Spinoza  and  Rousseau ;  but  the  laugh  should 
be  turned  upon  us  when  we  suppose  that  the 
historical  motif  played  any  but  a  very  minor  part 
in  the  discussion  of  the  natural  state  of  man. 
History  was  not  the  point  at  all :  these  men  were 
not  interested  in  the  past  so  much  as  in  the  pos- 
sibilities of  the  future.  That  is  why  the  eigh- 
teenth century  was  so  largely  their  creation. 
When  a  man  is  interested  in  the  past  he  writes 
history ;  when  he  is  interested  in  the  future  he 
makes  it. 

The  point  to  be  borne  in  mind,  Spinoza  urges, 
is  that  we  are  still  essentially  unsocialized ;  the 
instinct  to  acquire  possession  and  power,  if 
necessary  by  oppression  and  exploitation,  is  still 
stronger  than  the  disposition  to  share,  to  be  toler- 
ant of  disagreement,  and  to  work  in  mutual  aid. 
The  "natural  man"  is  not  a  myth,  he  is  the  solid 

1  Ethics,  bk.  iv,  prop.  58,  schol. 

H 


98      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

reality  that  struts  about  dressed  in  a  little  brief 
civilization.  "Religion  teaches  that  each  man 
should  love  his  neighbor  as  himself,  and  defend 
the  rights  of  others  as  earnestly  as  he  would  his 
own.  Yet  this  conviction  has  very  little  influence 
over  man's  emotions.  It  is  no  doubt  of  some  ac- 
count in  the  hour  of  death,  for  then  disease  has 
weakened  the  emotions,  and  the  man  lies  helpless. 
And  the  principle  is  assented  to  in  church,  for 
there  men  have  no  dealings  with  one  another. 
But  in  the  mart  or  the  court  it  has  little  or  no 
effect,  though  that  is  just  where  the  need  for  it  is 
greatest."  1  He  still  "  does  everything  for  the  sake 
of  his  own  profit"  ; 2  nor  will  even  the  unlimited 
future  change  him  in  that,  for  it  is  his  very  es- 
sence. His  happiness  is  in  the  pursuit  of  his 
profit,  his  supreme  joy  is  in  the  increase  of  his 
power.  And  a  social  order  built  upon  any  other 
basis  than  this  exuberant  egoism  of  man  will  be 
as  lasting,  in  the  eye  of  history,  as  a  name  that  is 
writ  in  water. 

V 

What  the  Social  Problem  Is 

But  what  if  it  is  a  good  basis?  What  if  "the 
foundation  of  virtue  is  the  endeavor  to  preserve 
one's  own  being"  to  the  uttermost?8    What  if 

1  Tractatus  Theohgico-politicus,  i,  5. 

1  Ethics,  bk.  i,  appendix. 

8  Ibid.,  bk.  iv,  prop.  18,  schol. 


SPINOZA   ON   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM        99 

there  is  a  way  in  which,  without  any  hypocritical 
mystification,  this  self-seeking,  while  still  remain- 
ing self-seeking,  may  become  cooperation? 

Spinoza's  answer  is  not  startling :  it  is  the 
Socratic  answer,  issuing  from  a  profound  psycho- 
logical analysis.  Given  the  liberation  and  de- 
velopment of  intelligence,  and  the  discordant  strife 
of  egos  will  yield  undreamed-of  harmonies.  Men 
are  so  made,  they  are  so  compact  of  passion  and 
obscurity,  that  they  will  not  let  one  another  be 
free  ;  how  can  that  be  changed  ?  Deception  has 
been  tried,  and  has  succeeded  only  temporarily 
if  at  all.  Compulsion  has  been  tried ;  but  com- 
pulsion is  a  negative  force,  it  makes  for  inhibition 
rather  than  inspiration.  It  is  a  necessary  evil ; 
but  hardly  the  last  word  of  constructive  social 
thinking.  There  is  something  more  in  a  man  than 
his  capacity  for  fear,  there  is  some  other  way 
of  appealing  to  him  than  the  way  of  threats ; 
there  is  his  hunger  and  thirst  to  know  and  under- 
stand and  develop.  Think  of  the  untouched 
resources  of  this  human  desire  for  mental  enlarge- 
ment ;  think  of  the  millions  who  almost  starve 
that  they  may  learn.  Is  that  the  force  that  is 
to  build  the  future  and  fashion  the  city  of  our 
dreams  ?  Here  are  men  torn  with  impulses,  shaken 
by  mutual  interference  ;  is  it  conceivable  that  they 
would  be  so  deeply  torn  and  shaken  if  that  hunger 
of  theirs  for  knowledge  —  knowledge  of  them- 
selves, too,  —  were  met  with  generous  oppor- 
tunity ?     Men  long  to  be  reasonable ;  they  know, 


100      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

even  the  least  of  them,  that  under  the  tyranny  of 
impulse  there  is  no  ultimately  fruitful  life ;  what 
is  there  that  they  would  not  give  for  the  power  to 
seee  things  clearly  and  be  captains  of  their  souls  ? 
Here  if  anywhere  is  an  opportunity  for  such  states- 
manship as  does  not  often  grace  the  courts  of  em- 
perors and  kings ! 

How  we  can  come  to  know  ourselves,  our  in- 
most nature,  how  we  can  through  this  knowledge 
achieve  coordination  and  our  real  desires,  —  that 
is  for  Spinoza  the  heart  of  the  social  problem. 
The  source  of  man's  strength  is  that  he  can  know 
his  weakness.  If  he  can  but  find  himself  out, 
then  he  can  change  himself.  "A  passion  ceases 
to  be  a  passion  as  soon  as  we  form  a  clear  and 
distinct  idea  of  it."  x  When  a  passion  is  tracked 
to  its  lair  and  confronted  with  its  futile  partiality, 
its  sting  is  drawn,  it  can  hurt  us  no  more ;  it  may 
cooperate  but  it  may  no  longer  rule.  It  is  seen 
to  be  "  inadequate,"  to  express  but  a  fragment  of 
us,  and  so  seen  it  sinks  into  its  place  in  the  hier- 
archy of  desires.  "And  in  proportion  as  we  know 
our  emotions  better,  the  more  are  they  susceptible 
to  control."2  Passion  is  passivity;  control  is 
power.  Knowledge  brings  control,  and  control 
brings  freedom ;  freedom  is  not  a  gift,  it  is  a  vic- 
tory. Knowledge,  control,  freedom,  power,  vir- 
tue:  these  are  all  one  thing.  Before  the  "em- 
pire of  man  over  nature"  must  come  the  empire 

1  Ethics,  bk.  iv,  prop.  3. 
8  Ibid.,  cor. 


SPINOZA   ON   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM      101 

of  man  over  himself,  must  come  coordination. 
Achievement  is  born  of  clear  vision  and  unified 
intent,  not  of  actions  that  are  but  bubbles  on  the 
muddy  rapids  of  desire. 

VI 

Free  Speech 

"Before  all  things,  a  means  must  be  devised  for 
improving  and  clarifying  the  understanding."  ' 
"Since  there  is  no  single  thing  we  know  which  is 
more  excellent  than  a  man  who  is  guided  by 
reason,  it  follows  that  there  is  nothing  by  which 
a  person  can  better  show  how  much  skill  and  talent 
he  possesses  than  by  so  educating  men  that  at 
last  they  will  live  under  the  direct  authority  of 
reason."  2    But  how? 

First  of  all,  says  Spinoza,  thought  must  be  ab- 
solutely free :  we  must  have  the  possible  profit 
of  even  the  most  dangerous  heresies.  If  that 
proposition  appear  a  trifle  trite,  let  it  be  remem- 
bered that  Spinoza  wrote  at  a  time  when  Galileo's 
broken-hearted  retraction  was  still  fresh  in  men's 
memories,  and  when  Descartes  was  modifying 
his  philosophy  to  soothe  the  Jesuits.  The  chapter 
on  freedom  of  thought  is  really  the  pivotal  point 
and  raison  d'etre  of  the  Tractatus  Theologico- 
politicus;  and  it  is  still  rich  in  encouragement 
and  inspiration.     Perhaps  there  is  nothing  else 

1  De  Inlellectus  Emendatione. 
'  Ethics,  bk.  iv,  appendix,  §  9. 


102      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

in  Spinoza's  writings  that  is  so  typical  at  once  of 
his  gentleness  and  of  his  strength. 

Free  speech  should  be  granted,  Spinoza  argues, 
because  it  must  be  granted.  Men  may  conceal 
real  beliefs,  but  these  same  beliefs  will  inevitably 
influence  their  behavior  ;  a  belief  is  not  that  which 
is  spoken,  it  is  that  which  is  done.  A  law  against 
free  speech  is  subversive  of  law  itself,  for  it  invites 
derision  from  the  conscientious.  "All  laws  which 
can  be  broken  without  any  injury  to  another 
are  counted  but  a  laughing-stock."  x  It  is  useless 
for  the  state  to  command  "such  things  as  are 
abhorrent  to  human  nature."  "Men  in  general 
are  so  constituted  that  there  is  nothing  they  will 
endure  with  so  little  patience  as  that  views  which 
they  believe  to  be  true  should  be  counted  crimes 
against  the  law.  .  .  .  Under  such  circumstances 
men  do  not  think  it  disgraceful,  but  most  honor- 
able, to  hold  the  laws  in  abhorrence,  and  to  re- 
frain from  no  action  against  the  government."  2 
Where  men  are  not  permitted  to  criticise  their 
rulers  in  public,  they  will  plot  against  them  in 
private.  There  is  no  religious  enthusiasm  stronger 
than  that  with  which  laws  are  broken  by  those 
whose  liberty  has  been  suppressed. 

Spinoza  goes  further.  Thought  must  be  lib- 
erated not  only  from  legal  restrictions  but  from 
indirect  and  even  unintentional  compulsion  as 
well.     Spinoza  feels  very  strongly  the  danger  to 

1  Tractatus  Theologico-politicus,  ch.  10. 
*Ibid.,  eh.  19. 


SPINOZA   ON   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM      103 

freedom,  that  is  involved  in  the  organization  of 
education  by  the  state.  "Academies  that  are 
founded  at  the  public  expense  are  instituted  not 
so  much  to  cultivate  men's  natural  abilities  as  to 
restrain  them.  But  in  a  free  commonwealth  arts 
and  sciences  will  be  best  cultivated  to  the  full  if 
everyone  that  asks  leave  is  allowed  to  teach  in 
public,  at  his  own  cost  and  risk."  1  He  would  have 
preferred  such  "free  lances"  as  the  Sophists  to  the 
state  universities  of  the  American  Middle  West. 
He  did  not  suggest  means  of  avoiding  the  apparent 
alternative  of  universities  subsidized  by  the  rich. 
It  is  a  problem  that  has  still  to  be  solved. 

In  demanding  absolute  freedom  of  speech  Spi- 
noza touches  the  bases  of  state  organization. 
Nothing  is  so  dangerous  and  yet  so  necessary; 
for  ignorance  is  the  mother  of  authority.  The  de- 
fenders of  free  speech  have  never  yet  met  the  con- 
tention of  such  men  as  Hobbes,  that  freedom  of 
thought  is  subversive  of  established  government. 
The  reason  is  only  this,  that  the  contention  is 
probably  true,  so  far  as  most  established  govern- 
ments go.  Absolute  liberty  of  speech  is  assuredly 
destructive  of  despotism,  no  matter  how  constitu- 
tional the  despotism  may  be ;  and  those  who  have 
at  heart  the  interests  of  any  such  government 
may  be  forgiven  for  hesitating  to  applaud  Spinoza. 
Freedom  of  speech  makes  for  social  vitality,  cer- 
tainly ;  without  it,  indeed,  the  avenues  of  mental 
and  social  development  would  be  blocked,  and 

»  Ibid.,  ch.  8. 


104      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

life  hardly  worth  living.  But  freedom  of  speech 
cannot  be  said  to  make  for  social  stability  and 
permanence,  unless  the  social  organization  in  ques- 
tion invites  criticism  and  includes  some  mechanism 
for  profiting  by  it.  Where  democracy  is  real, 
or  is  on  the  way  to  becoming  real,  free  speech 
will  help,  not  harm,  the  state ;  for  there  is  no  man 
so  loyal  as  the  man  who  knows  that  he  may  criti- 
cise his  government  freely  and  to  some  account. 
But  where  there  is  the  autocracy  of  a  person  or  a 
class,  freedom  of  speech  makes  for  dissolution,  — 
dissolution,  however,  not  of  the  society  so  much 
as  of  the  government.  The  Bourbons  are  gone, 
but  France  remains.  Nay,  if  the  Bourbons  had 
remained,  France  might  be  gone. 

But  to  argue  to-day  for  freedom  of  speech  is  to 
invite  the  charge  of  emphasizing  the  obvious. 
It  may  be  wholesome  to  remind  ourselves,  by  a 
few  examples,  that  however  universal  the  theory 
of  free  speech  may  be,  the  practice  is  still  rather 
sporadic.  An  American  professor  is  dismissed 
because  he  thinks  there  is  a  plethora  of  unearned 
income  in  his  country;  an  English  publicist  is 
reported  to  have  been  refused  "permission"  to 
fill  lecture  engagements  in  America  because  he 
had  not  been  sufficiently  patriotic ;  and  one  of  the 
most  prominent  of  living  philosophers  loses  his 
chair  because  he  supposes  that  conscience  has 
rights  against  cabinets.  But  indeed  our  governing 
bodies  are  harmless  offenders  here  in  comparison 
with  the  people  themselves.     The  last  lesson  which 


SPINOZA    ON    THE    SOCIAL    PROBLEM      105 

men  and  women  will  learn  is  the  lesson  of  free 
thought  and  free  speech.  The  most  famous  of 
living  dramatists  finds  himself  unsafe  in  London 
streets,  because  he  has  dared  to  criticise  his  govern- 
ment; the  most  able  of  living  novelists  finds  it 
convenient  to  leave  Paris  because  there  are  still 
some  Germans  whom  he  does  not  hate;  and  an 
American  community  full  of  constitutional  lawyers 
shows  its  love  of  "law  and  order"  by  stoning  a 
group  of  boys  bent  on  expounding  the  desirability 
of  syndicalism. 

Perhaps  the  world  has  need  of  many  Spinozas 
still. 

VII 

Virtue  as  Power 

Freedom  of  expression  is  the  corner-stone  of 
Spinoza's  politics ;  the  postulate  without  which  he 
refuses  to  proceed.  But  Spinoza  does  not  have 
to  be  told  that  this  question  of  free  speech  precipi- 
tates him  into  the  larger  problems  of  "the  indi- 
vidual vs.  the  state" ;  he  knows  that  that  problem 
is  the  very  raison  d'itre  of  political  philosophy; 
he  knows  that  indeed  the  problem  goes  to  the  core 
of  philosophy,  and  finds  its  source  and  crux  in  the 
complex  socio-egoistical  make-up  of  the  individual 
man. 

The  "God-intoxicated"  Spinoza  is  quite  sober 
and  disillusioned  about  the  social  possibilities  of 
altruism.     "It  is  a  universal  law  of  human  nature 


106      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

that  no  one  ever  neglects  anything  which  he 
judges  to  be  good,  except  with  the  hope  of  gaining 
a  greater  good."  l  "This  is  as  necessarily  true  as 
that  the  whole  is  greater  than  its  part."  2  This 
confident  reduction  of  human  conduct  to  self- 
reference  does  not  for  Spinoza  involve  any  con- 
demnation:  "reason,  since  it  asks  for  nothing 
that  is  opposed  to  nature,  demands  that  every 
person  should  .  .  .  seek  his  own  profit."  3  Ob- 
serve, reason  demands  this ;  this  same  self-seeking 
is  the  most  valuable  and  necessary  item  in  the 
composition  of  man.  Spinoza,  as  said,  goes  so 
far  as  to  identify  this  self-seeking  with  virtue : 
"to  act  absolutely  in  conformity  with  virtue  is, 
in  us,  nothing  but  to  act,  live,  and  preserve  our 
being  (these  three  have  the  same  meaning)  as 
reason  directs,  from  the  ground  of  seeking  our 
own  profit."  4  This  is  a  brave  rejection  of  self- 
renunciation  and  asceticism  by  one  whose  nature, 
so  far  as  we  can  judge  it  now,  inclined  him  very 
strongly  in  the  direction  of  these  "virtues." 
What  we  have  to  do,  says  Spinoza,  is  not  to  deny 
the  self,  but  to  broaden  it ;  here  again,  of  course, 
intelligence  is  the  mother  of  morals.  Progress  lies 
not  in  self -reduction  but  in  self-expansion.  Prog- 
ress is  increase  in  virtue,  but  "by  virtue  and 
power  I  understand  the  same  thing"; 5    progress 

1  Tractatus  Theologico-politicus,  ch.  16. 

2  Ethics,  bk.  iv,  prop.  18,  schol. 

3  Ibid. 

4  Ibid.,  bk.  iv,  prop.  24. 
«  Bk.  iv,  def.  8. 


SPINOZA    ON    THE    SOCIAL    PROBLEM      107 

is  an  increase  in  the  ability  of  men  to  achieve  their 
ends.  It  is  part  of  our  mental  confectionery  to 
define  progress  in  terms  of  our  own  ends ;  a  nation 
is  "backward"  or  "forward"  according  as  it  moves 
towards  or  away  from  our  own  ideals.  But  that, 
says  Spinoza,  is  naive  nonsense ;  a  nation  is  pro- 
gressive or  backward  according  as  its  citizens 
are  or  are  not  developing  greater  power  to  realize 
their  own  purposes.  That  is  a  doctrine  that  may 
have  "dangerous"  implications,  but  intelligence 
will  face  the  implications  and  the  facts,  ready  not 
to  suppress  them  but  to  turn  them  to  account. 

It  was  the  passion  for  power  that  led  to  the  first 
social  groupings  and  developed  the  social  instincts. 
Our  varied  sympathies,  our  parental  and  filial 
impulses,  our  heroisms  and  generosities,  all  go 
back  to  social  habits  born  of  individual  needs. 
"Since  fear  of  solitude  exists  in  all  men,  because 
no  one  in  solitude  is  strong  enough  to  defend  him- 
self and  procure  the  necessaries  of  life,  it  follows 
that  men  by  nature  tend  towards  social  organiza- 
tion." l  "Let  satirists  scoff  at  human  affairs  as 
much  as  they  please,  let  theologians  denounce 
them,  and  let  the  melancholy,  despising  men  and 
admiring  brutes,  praise  as  much  as  they  can  a  life 
rude  and  without  refinement,  —  men  will  never- 
theless find  out  that  by  mutual  help  they  can 
much  more  easily  procure  the  things  they  need, 
and  that  it  is  only  by  their  united  strength  that 
they  can  avoid  the  dangers  which  everywhere 

1  Tractates  Theologico-politicus,  ch.  6,  §  1. 


108      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

threaten  them."  l  Nihil  homine  homini  utilius. 
Men  discover  that  they  are  useful  to  one  another, 
and  that  mutual  profit  from  social  organization 
increases  as  intelligence  grows.  In  a  "state  of 
nature  "  —  that  is,  before  social  organization  — 
each  man  has  a  "natural  right"  to  do  all  that  he 
is  strong  enough  to  do ;  in  society  he  yields  part 
of  this  sovereignty  to  the  communal  organization, 
because  he  finds  that  this  concession,  universalized, 
increases  his  strength.  The  fear  of  solitude,  and 
not  any  positive  love  of  fellowship,  is  the  prime 
force  in  the  origin  of  society.  Man  does  not  join 
in  social  organization  because  he  has  social  in- 
stincts; he  develops  such  instincts  as  the  result 
of  joining  in  such  organization. 

VIII 

Freedom  and  Order 

Even  to-day  the  social  instincts  are  not  strong 
enough  to  prevent  unsocial  behavior.  "Men  are 
not  born  fit  for  citizenship,  but  must  be  made 
so." 2  Hence  custom  and  law.  Each  man,  in 
his  sober  moments,  desires  such  social  arrange- 
ments as  will  protect  him  from  aggression  and 
interference.  "There  is  no  one  who  does  not 
wish  to  live,  so  far  as  possible,  in  security  and  with- 
out fear ;  and  this  cannot  possibly  happen  so  long 
as  each  man  is  allowed  to  do  as  he  pleases."  3 

1  Ethics,  bk.  iv,  prop.  35,  schol. 

*  Tractatus  Theologico-politicus,  ch.  5,  §  2. 

•  Ibid.,  ch.  16. 


SPINOZA   ON   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM      109 

"That  men  who  are  necessarily  subject  to  pas- 
sions, and  are  inconstant  and  changeable,  may  be 
able  to  live  together  in  security,  and  to  trust  one 
another's  fidelity,"  —  that  is  the  purpose  of  law.1 
Ideally,  the  state  is  to  the  individual  what  reason 
is  to  passion.2  Law  protects  a  man  not  only  from 
the  passions  of  others,  but  from  his  own ;  it  is  a 
help  to  delayed  response.  How  to  frame  laws  so 
that  the  greatest  possible  number  of  men  may  find 
their  own  security  and  fulfilment  in  allegiance  to 
the  law,  —  that  is  the  problem  of  the  statesman. 
Law  implies  force,  but  so  does  life,  so  does  nature ; 
indeed,  the  punishments  decreed  by  "man-made" 
states  are  usually  milder  than  those  which  in  a 
"state  of  nature"  would  be  the  natural  conse- 
quents of  most  interferences ;  not  seldom  the 
law  —  as  when  it  prevents  lynching  —  protects 
an  aggressor  from  the  natural  results  of  his  act. 
Force  is  the  essence  of  law;  hence  international 
law  will  not  really  be  law  until  nations  are  coor- 
dinated into  a  larger  group  possessed  of  the  in- 
strumentalities of  compulsion.3 

It  is  clear  that  Spinoza  has  the  philosophic  love 
of  order.  "Whatever  conduces  to  human  har- 
mony and  fellowship  is  good ;  whatever  brings 
discord  into  the  state  is  evil."  4  But  discord,  one 
must  repeat,  is  often  the  prelude  to  a  greater 

1  Ethics,  bk.  iv,  prop.  37,  schol.  2. 

1  Contrast  Plato :     the  state  (i.e.,  the  governing  classes) 
is  to  the  lower  classes  as  reason  is  to  passion. 
'  Tractalus  Theologico-politicus,  ch.  3,  §  14. 
*  Ethics,  bk.  iv,  prop.  40. 


110      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

harmony ;  development  implies  variation,  and  all 
variation  is  a  discord  except  to  ears  that  hear 
the  future.  The  social  sanction  of  liberty  lies  of 
course  in  the  potential  value  of  variations ;  with- 
out that  vision  of  new  social  possibilities  which  is 
suggested  by  variations  from  the  norm  a  people 
perishes.  Spinoza  does  not  see  this ;  but  there  is 
a  fine  passage  in  the  Tractatus  Politicus 1  which 
shows  him  responsive  to  the  ideal  of  liberty  as  well 
as  to  that  of  order :  "The  last  end  of  the  state  is 
not  to  dominate  men,  nor  to  restrain  them  by  fear ; 
rather  it  is  so  to  free  each  man  from  fear  that  he 
may  live  and  act  with  full  security  and  without 
injury  to  himself  or  his  neighbor.  The  end  of  the 
state  is,  I  repeat,  not  to  make  rational  beings  into 
brute  beasts  or  machines.  It  is  to  enable  their 
bodies  and  their  minds  to  function  safely.  It  is 
to  lead  men  to  live  by,  and  to  exercise,  a  free  reason, 
that  they  may  not  waste  their  strength  in  hatred, 
anger,  and  guile,  not  act  unfairly  toward  one 
another.  Thus  the  end  of  the  state  is  really 
liberty." 

So  it  is  that  Spinoza  takes  sharp  issue  with 
Hobbes  and  exalts  freedom,  decentralization,  and 
democracy,  where  Hobbes,  starting  with  almost 
identical  premises,  concludes  to  a  centralized  des- 
potism of  body  and  soul.  This  does  not  mean 
that  Spinoza  had  no  eye  for  the  defects  of  democ- 
racy. "Experience  is  supposed  to  teach  that  it 
makes  for  peace  and  concord  when  all  authority 

i  Ch.  20. 


SPINOZA   ON   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM      111 

is  conferred  upon  one  man.  For  no  political 
order  has  stood  so  long  without  notable  change  as 
that  of  the  Turks,  while  none  have  been  so  short- 
lived, nay,  so  vexed  by  seditions,  as  popular  or 
democratic  states.  But  if  slavery,  barbarism,  and 
desolation  are  to  be  called  peace,  then  peace  is 
the  worst  misfortune  that  can  befall  a  state. 
It  is  true  that  quarrels  are  wont  to  be  sharper 
and  more  frequent  between  parents  and  children 
than  between  masters  and  slaves ;  yet  it  advances 
not  the  art  of  home  life  to  change  a  father's  right 
into  a  right  of  property,  and  count  his  children  as 
only  his  slaves.  Slavery,  then,  and  not  peace, 
comes  from  the  giving  of  all  power  to  one  man. 
For  peace  consists  not  in  the  absence  of  war, 
but  in  a  union  and  harmony  of  men's  souls."  * 

No ;  better  the  insecurity  of  freedom  than  the 
security  of  bondage.  Better  the  dangers  that 
come  of  the  ignorance  of  majorities  than  those  that 
flow  from  the  concentration  of  power  in  the  hands 
of  an  inevitably  self-seeking  minority.  Even 
secret  diplomacy  is  worse  than  the  risks  of  public- 
ity. "It  has  been  the  one  song  of  those  who  thirst 
after  absolute  power  that  the  interest  of  the  state 
requires  that  its  affairs  be  conducted  in  secret. 
.  .  .  But  the  more  such  arguments  disguise  them- 
selves under  the  mask  of  public  welfare  the  more 
oppressive  is  the  slavery  to  which  they  will  lead. 
.  .  .  Better  that  right  counsels  be  known  to 
enemies,   than  that  the  evil  secrets  of  tyrants 

1  Tractatus  Theologico-politicus,  ch.  6,  §  4. 


112      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

should  be  concealed  from  the  citizens.  They  who 
can  treat  secretly  of  the  affairs  of  a  nation  have  it 
absolutely  under  their  authority;  and  as  they 
plot  against  the  enemy  in  time  of  war,  so  do  they 
against  the  citizens  in  time  of  peace.  ...  It  is 
folly  to  choose  to  avoid  a  small  loss  by  means  of 
the  greatest  of  evils."  l 

This  is  but  one  of  many  passages  in  Spinoza  that 
startle  the  reader  with  their  present  applicabil- 
ity and  value.  There  is  in  the  same  treatise  a 
plan  for  an  unpaid  citizen  soldiery,  much  like  the 
scheme  adopted  in  Switzerland ;  there  is  a  plea 
against  centralization  and  for  the  development  of 
municipal  pride  by  home  rule  and  responsibility; 
there  is  a  warning  against  the  danger  to  democ- 
racy involved  in  the  territorial  expansion  of  states  ; 
and  there  is  a  plan  for  the  state  ownership  of  all 
land,  the  rental  from  this  to  supply  all  revenue 
in  time  of  peace.  But  let  us  pass  to  a  more  char- 
acteristic feature  of  Spinoza's  political  theory,  and 
consider  with  him  the  function  of  intelligence  in 
the  state. 

IX 

Democracy  and  Intelligence 

"  There  is  no  single  thing  in  nature  which  is  more 
profitable  to  man  than  a  man  who  lives  accord- 
ing to  the  guidance  of  reason."  2    Such  a  man,  to 

1  Tractatus  Theologico-politicus,  ch.  6,  §  4,  ch.  7,  J  29. 

2  Ethics,  bk.  iv,  prop.  35,  cor.  1. 


SPINOZA   ON   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM      113 

begin  with,  has  made  his  peace  with  the  inevitable, 
and  accepts  with  good  cheer  the  necessary  limi- 
tations of  social  life.  He  has  a  genial  sense  of 
human  imperfections,  and  does  not  cushion  him- 
self upon  Utopia.  He  pursues  his  own  ends  but 
with  some  perspective  of  their  social  bearings ;  and 
he  is  confident  that  "when  each  man  seeks  that 
which  is  [really]  profitable  to  himself,  then  are 
men  most  profitable  to  one  another."  *  He  knows 
that  the  ends  of  other  men  will  often  conflict  with 
his ;  but  he  will  not  for  that  cause  make  moral 
phrases  at  them.  He  feels  the  tragedy  of  isolated 
purposes,  and  knows  the  worth  of  cooperation. 
As  he  comes  to  understand  the  intricate  bonds 
between  himself  and  his  fellows  he  finds  ever  more 
satisfaction  in  purposes  that  overflow  the  narrow 
margins  of  his  own  material  advantage;  until 
at  last  he  learns  to  desire  nothing  for  himself 
without  desiring  an  equivalent  for  others.2 

Given  such  men,  democracy  follows ;  such  de- 
mocracy, too,  as  will  be  a  fulfilment  and  not  a 
snare.  Given  such  men,  penal  codes  will  interest 
only  the  antiquarian.  Given  such  men,  a  society 
will  know  the  full  measure  of  civic  allegiance 
and  communal  stability  and  development.  How 
make  such  men?  By  revivals?  By  the  gentle 
anaesthesia  of  heaven  and  the  cheap  penology  of 

1  Ibid.,  cor.  2. 

1  Ibid.,  prop.  18,  schol. ;  also  prop.  37.  Cf.  Whitman: 
"By  God!  I  will  accept  nothing  which  all  cannot  have  their 
counterpart  of  on  the  same  terms." 

I 


114      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

hell?  By  memorizing  catechisms  and  command- 
ments? By  appealing  like  Comte,  to  the  heart, 
and  trusting  to  the  eternal  feminine  to  lead  us 
ever  onward  ?  (Onward  whither  ?)  Or  by  spread- 
ing the  means  of  intelligence? 

It  is  at  this  point  that  the  social  philosophy  of 
Spinoza,  like  that  of  Socrates,  betrays  its  weaker 
side.  How  is  intelligence  to  be  spread  ?  Perhaps 
it  is  too  much  to  ask  the  philosopher  this  question ; 
he  may  feel  that  he  has  done  enough  if  he  has  made 
clear  what  it  is  which  will  most  help  us  to  achieve 
our  ends.  Spinoza,  after  all,  was  not  the  kind 
of  man  who  could  be  expected  to  enter  into  prac- 
tical problems ;  his  soul  was  filled  with  the  vision 
of  the  eternal  laws  and  had  no  room  for  the  passing 
expediencies  of  action.  His  devotional  geometry 
was  a  typical  Jewish  performance ;  there  is  some- 
thing in  the  emotional  make-up  of  the  Jew  which 
makes  him  slide  very  easily  into  the  attitude  of 
worship,  as  contrasted  with  the  Grseco-Roman 
emphasis  on  intellect  and  control.  All  pantheism 
tends  to  quietism ;  to  see  things  sub  specie  eterni- 
tatis  may  very  well  pass  from  the  attitude  of  the 
scientist  to  the  attitude  of  the  mystic  who  has  no 
interest  in  temporal  affairs.  It  is  the  task  of  phi- 
losophy to  study  the  eternal  and  universal  not  for 
its  own  sake  but  for  its  worth  in  directing  us 
through  the  maze  of  temporal  particulars;  the 
philosopher  must  be  like  the  mariner  who  guides 
himself  through  space  and  time  by  gazing  at  the 
everlasting  stars.     It  is  wholesome  that  the  his- 


SPINOZA    ON    THE    SOCIAL    PROBLEM      115 

tory  of  philosophy  should  begin  with  Thales ;  so 
that  all  who  come  to  the  history  of  philosophy 
may  learn,  at  the  door  of  their  subject,  that 
though  stars  are  beautiful,  wells  are  deep. 

X 

The  Legacy  of  Spinoza 

But  to  leave  the  matter  thus  would  be  to  lose 
a  part  of  the  truth  in  the  glare  of  one's  brilliance. 
We  have  to  recognize  that  though  Spinoza  stopped 
short  (or  rather  was  cut  short)  at  merely  a  state- 
ment of  the  prime  need  of  all  democracies,  — 
intelligence,  —  he  was  nevertheless  the  inspira- 
tion of  men  who  carried  his  beginning  more  nearly 
to  a  practical  issue.  To  Spinoza,  through  Vol- 
taire and  the  English  deists,  one  may  trace  not  a 
few  of  the  thought-currents  which  carried  away 
the  foundations  of  ecclesiastical  power,  civil  and 
intellectual,  in  eighteenth-century  France,  and  left 
the  middle  class  conscience-free  to  engineer  a 
revolution.  It  was  from  Spinoza  chiefly  that 
Rousseau  derived  his  ideas  of  popular  sovereignty, 
of  the  general  will,  of  the  right  of  revolution,  of 
the  legitimacy  of  the  force  that  makes  men  free, 
and  of  the  ideal  state  as  that  in  which  all  the  citi- 
zens form  an  assembly  with  final  power.1    The 

1  Not  that  these  ideas  were  original  with  Spinoza ;  they 
were  the  general  legacy  of  Renaissance  political  thought. 
But  it  was  through  the  writings  of  Spinoza  that  this  legacy 
was  transmitted  to  Rousseau.     Cf.  Duff,  p.  319. 


116      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

French  Declaration  of  Rights  and  the  American 
Declaration  of  Independence  go  back  in  part  to 
the  forgotten  treatises  of  the  quiet  philosopher  of 
Amsterdam.  To  have  initiated  or  accelerated 
such  currents  of  thought  —  theoretical  in  their 
origin  but  extremely  practical  in  their  issue  —  is 
thereby  once  for  all  to  have  put  one's  self  above  the 
reach  of  mere  fault-finding.  One  wonders  again, 
as  so  many  have  wondered,  what  would  have  been 
the  extent  of  this  man's  achievement  had  he  not 
died  at  the  age  of  forty-four.  When  Spinoza's 
pious  landlady  returned  from  church  on  the  morn- 
ing of  February  21,  1677,  and  found  her  gentle 
philosopher  dead,  she  stood  in  the  presence  of 
one  of  the  great  silent  tragedies  of  human  history. 


CHAPTER  V 

NIETZSCHE 

I 
From  Spinoza  to  Nietzsche 

Let  us  dare  to  compress  within  a  page  or  two  the 
social  aspect  of  philosophical  thought  from  Spi- 
noza to  Nietzsche.  Without  forgetting  that  our 
purpose  is  to  show  the  social  problem  as  the 
dominant  interest  of  only  many,  not  all,  of  the 
greater  philosophers,  we  may  yet  risk  the  asser- 
tion that  the  majority  of  the  men  who  formed  the 
epistemological  tradition  from  Descartes  to  Kant 
were  at  heart  concerned  less  with  the  problem 
of  knowledge  than  with  that  of  social  relations. 
Descartes  slips  through  this  generalization ;  he 
is  a  man  of  leisure  lost  in  the  maze  of  a  puzzle 
which  he  has  not  discovered  so  much  as  he  has 
unconsciously  constructed  it.  In  Locke's  hands 
the  puzzle  is  distorted  into  the  question  of  "in- 
nate ideas,"  in  order  that  under  cover  of  an  inno- 
cent epistemological  excursion  a  blow  may  be 
struck  at  hereditary  prejudices  and  authoritarian 
teaching,  and  the  way  made  straight  for  the  ad- 
vance of  popular  sovereignty  (as  against  the  ab- 

117 


118      PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    PROBLEM 

solutism  of  Hobbes),  free  speech,  reasonable  reli- 
gion, and  social  amelioration.  The  dominance 
of  the  social  interest  is  not  so  easily  shown  in  the 
case  of  Leibniz ;  but  let  it  be  remembered  none 
the  less  that  epistemology  was  but  an  aside  in  the 
varied  drama  of  Leibniz'  life,  and  that  his  head 
was  dizzy  with  schemes  for  the  betterment  of  this 
"best  of  all  possible  worlds."  Bishop  Berkeley 
begins  with  esse  est  percipi  and  ends  with  tar- 
water  as  the  solution  of  all  problems.  David 
Hume,  in  the  midst  of  a  life  busied  with  politics 
and  the  discussion  of  social,  political,  and  eco- 
nomic problems,  spares  a  year  or  two  for  episte- 
mology, only  to  use  it  as  a  handle  whereby  to  deal 
a  blow  to  dogma  ;  he  "was  more  damaging  to  reli- 
gion than  Voltaire,  but  was  ingenious  enough  not 
to  get  the  credit  for  it."  1  The  social  incidence  of 
philosophy  in  eighteenth-century  France  was  so 
decided  that  one  might  describe  that  philosophy 
as  part  of  the  explosive  with  which  the  middle  class 
undermined  the  status  quo.  This  social  emphasis 
continues  in  Comte,  who  cannot  forget  that  he  was 
once  the  secretary  of  St.  Simon,  and  will  not  let 
us  forget  that  the  function  of  the  philosopher  is 
to  coordinate  experience  with  a  view  to  the  re- 
moulding of  human  life.  John  Stuart  Mill  is 
radical  first  and  logician  afterward  ;  and  the  more 
lasting  as  well  as  the  more  interesting  element 
in  Spencer  is  the  sociological,  educational,  and 
political  theory.     In  Kant  the  basic  social  interest 

1  Professor  Woodbridge  :  class-lectures. 


NIETZSCHE  119 

is  buried  under  epistemological  cobwebs ;  yet  not 
so  choked  but  that  it  finds  very  resolute  voice 
at  last.  The  essence  of  the  matter  here  is  the 
return  of  the  prodigal,  the  relapse  of  a  once  ad- 
venturous soul  into  the  comfort  of  religious  and 
'political  absolutes,  categorical  —  and  Potsdam  — 
imperatives.  Here  is  "dogmatic  slumber"  over- 
come only  to  yield  to  the  torpor  and  abetisement  of 
"practical  reason"  ;  here  is  no  "Copernican  revo- 
lution" but  a  stealthy  attempt  to  recover  an 
anthropocentricism  lost  in  the  glare  of  the  Enlight- 
enment. It  dawns  on  us  that  the  importance  of 
German  philosophy  is  not  metaphysical,  nor 
epistemological,  but  political ;  the  vital  remnant 
of  Kant  to-day  is  to  be  found  not  in  our  over- 
flowing Mississippi  of  Kantiana,  but  in  the  Ger- 
man notion  of  obedience.1  Fichte  reenforces  this 
notion  of  unquestioning  obedience  with  the  doc- 
trine of  state  socialism :  he  begins  by  tending 
geese,  and  ends  by  writing  philosophy  for  them. 
So  with  Hegel :  he  starts  out  buoyantly  with  the 
proposition  that  revolution  is  the  heart  of  history, 
and  ends  by  discovering  that  the  King  of  Prussia 
is  God  in  disguise.  In  Schopenhauer  the  bubble 
bursts;  a  millennium  of  self-deception  ends  at 
last  in  exhaustion  and  despair.  Every  Hilde- 
brand  has  his  Voltaire,  and  every  Voltaire  his 
Schopenhauer. 

1  Cf.  Professor  Dewey's  German  Philosophy  and  Politics, 
New  York,  1915. 


120      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

II 

Biographical 

"In  future,"  Nietzsche  once  wrote,  "let  no  one 
concern  himself  about  me,  but  only  about  the 
things  for  which  I  lived."  We  must  make  this 
biographical  note  brief. 

Nietzsche  was  born  in  Rocken,  Germany,  1844, 
the  son  of  a  "noble  young  parson."  He  was 
brought  up  in  strict  piety,  and  prepared  himself  to 
enter  the  ministry ;  even  at  boarding-school  he 
was  called  "the  little  minister,"  and  made  people 
cry  by  his  recitations  from  the  Bible.  We  have 
pictures  of  him  which  show  him  in  all  his  boyish 
seriousness ;  it  is  evident  that  he  is  of  a  deeply 
religious  nature,  and  therefore  doomed  to  heresy. 
At  eighteen  he  discovers  that  he  has  begun  to 
doubt  the  traditional  creed.  "When  I  examine 
my  own  thoughts,"  he  writes,  "and  hearken  into 
my  own  soul,  I  often  feel  as  if  I  heard  the  buzzing 
and  roaring  of  wild-contending  parties."  x  At 
twenty-one,  while  studying  in  the  University  of 
Leipzig,  he  discovers  the  philosophy  of  Schopen- 
hauer ;  he  reads  all  hungrily,  feeling  here  a  kin- 
dred youth;  "the  need  of  knowing  myself,  even 
of  gnawing  at  myself,  forcibly  seized  upon  me."  2 
He  is  ripe  for  pessimism,  having  both  religion 
and  a  bad  stomach.     Because  of   his    defective 

1  Forster-Nietzsche,  The  Young  Nietzsche,  London,  1912, 
p.  98. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  152. 


NIETZSCHE  121 

eyesight  he  is  barred  from  military  service ;  in 
1870  he  burns  with  patriotic  fever,  and  at  last  is 
allowed  to  join  the  army  as  a  nurse ;  but  he  is 
almost  overcome  at  sight  of  the  sick  and  wounded, 
and  himself  falls  ill  with  dysentery  and  dyspepsia. 
In  this  same  year  he  sees  a  troop  of  cavalry  pass 
through  a  town  in  stately  gallop  and  array ;  his 
weakened  frame  thrills  with  the  sight  of  this 
strength  :  "I  felt  for  the  first  time  that  the  strong- 
est and  highest  Will  to  Life  does  not  find  expression 
in  a  miserable  struggle  for  existence,  but  in  a  Will 
to  War,  a  Will  to  Power,  a  Will  to  Overpower !"  x 
Nevertheless,  he  settles  down  to  a  quietly  ascetic 
life  as  professor  of  philology  at  the  University  of 
Basle.  But  there  is  adventure  in  him ;  and  in 
his  first  book  2  he  slips  from  the  prose  of  philology 
into  an  almost  lyrical  philosophy.  Illness  finds 
voice  here  in  the  eulogy  of  health ;  weakness  in 
the  deification  of  strength ;  melancholy  in  the 
praise  of  "Dionysian  joy  "  ;  loneliness  in  the  exal- 
tation of  friendship.  He  has  a  friend  —  Wagner 
—  the  once  romantic  rebel  of  revolution's  barri- 
cades ;  but  this  friend  too  is  taken  from  him,  with 
slowly  painful  breaking  of  bond  after  bond.  For 
Wagner,  the  strong,  the  overbearing,  the  ruthless, 
is  coming  to  a  philosophy  of  Christian  sympathy 
and  gentleness  ;  qualities  that  cannot  seem  divine 
to  Nietzsche,  because  they  are  long-familiar  ele- 
ments in  his  own  character.  "What  I  am  not," 
he  says,  most  truthfully,  "that  for  me  is  God  and 
> Ibid.,  p.  235.  2  The  Birth  of  Tragedy,  1872. 


122      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

virtue."  l  And  so  he  stands  at  last  alone,  borne 
up  solely  by  the  exhilaration  of  creative  thought. 
He  has  acquaintances,  but  he  puts  up  with  them 
"simply,  like  a  patient  animal";  "not  one  has 
the  faintest  inkling  of  my  task."  And  he  suffers 
terribly  "through  this  absence  of  sympathy  and 
understanding."  2 

He  leaves  even  these  acquaintances,  and  aban- 
dons his  work  at  Basle  ;  broken  in  health  he  finds 
his  way  hopefully  to  the  kindlier  climate  of  Italy. 
Doctor  after  doctor  prescribes  for  him,  one  pre- 
scription reading,  "a  nice  Italian  sweetheart." 
He  longs  for  the  comradeship,  but  dreads  the 
friction,  of  marriage.  "It  seems  to  me  absurd," 
he  writes,  "that  one  who  has  chosen  for  his 
sphere  .  .  .  the  assessment  of  existence  as  a 
whole,  should  burden  himself  with  the  cares  of  a 
family,  with  winning  bread,  security,  and  social 
position  for  wife  and  children."  He  does  not 
hesitate  to  conclude  that  "where  the  highest  phil- 
osophical thinking  is  concerned  all  married  men 
are  suspect."  3  Nevertheless  he  wanders  humanly 
into  something  very  like  a  love-affair;  he  is  al- 
most shattered  with  rapid  disillusionment,  and 
takes  refuge  in  philosophy.  "Every  misunder- 
standing," he  tells  himself,  "has  made  me  freer. 
I  want  less  and  less  from  humanity,  and  can  give 

1  Thus  Spake  Zarathustra,  p.  129. 

2  Forster-Nietzsche,   The  Lonely  Nietzsche,   London,  1915, 
pp.  291,  212,  77. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  313. 


NIETZSCHE  123 

it  more  and  more.  The  severance  of  every  indi- 
vidual tie  is  hard  to  bear  ;  but  in  each  case  a  wing 
grows  in  its  place."  x  And  yet  the  need  of  com- 
radeship is  still  there,  like  a  gnawing  hunger : 
many  years  later  he  catches  a  passing  smile  from 
a  beautiful  young  woman,  whom  he  has  never  seen 
before;  and  "suddenly  my  lonely  philosopher's 
heart  grew  warm  within  me."  2  But  she  walks  off 
without  seeing  him,  and  they  never  meet  again. 

The  simple  Italians  who  rent  him  his  attic 
room  in  Genoa  understand  him  better  perhaps 
than  he  can  be  understood  by  more  pretentious 
folk.  They  know  his  greatness,  though  they  can- 
not classify  it.  The  children  of  his  landlady  call 
him  "II  Santo";  and  the  market-women  keep 
their  choicest  grapes  for  the  bent  philosopher  who, 
it  is  whispered,  writes  bitterly  about  women  and 
"the  superfluous."  But  what  they  know  for  cer- 
tain is  that  he  is  a  man  of  exceeding  gentleness  and 
purity,  that  he  is  the  very  soul  of  chivalry ; 
"  stories  are  still  told  of  his  politeness  towards 
women  to  whom  no  one  else  showed  any  kind- 
ness." 3  Let  him  write  what  he  pleases,  so  long 
as  he  is  what  he  is. 

He  lives  simply,  almost  in  poverty.  "His  little 
room,"  writes  a  visitor,  "is  bare  and  cheerless. 
It  has  evidently  been  selected  for  cheapness  rather 
than  for  comfort.  No  carpet,  not  even  a  stove.  I 
found    it    fearfully    cold." 4     His    publisher    has 

1  Ibid.,  p.  181.  *Ibid.,  p.  424. 

« Ibid.,  p.  297.  *  Ibid.,  p.  195. 


124      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

made  no  profit  on  his  books ;  they  are  too  sharply- 
opposed  to  the  "spirit  of  the  age "  ;  hence  the  title 
he  gives  to  two  of  his  volumes :  Unzeitgemdsse 
Betrachtungen,  —  Thoughts  Out  of  Season.  There 
is  no  money,  he  is  now  informed,  in  such  untimely 
volumes ;  hereafter  he  must  publish  his  books  at 
his  own  cost.  He  does,  stinting  himself  severely 
to  meet  the  new  expense ;  his  greatest  books  see 
the  light  in  this  way.1 

He  works  hard,  knowing  that  his  shaken  frame 
has  but  short  lease  of  life ;  and  he  comes  to  love 
his  painful  solitude  as  a  gift.  "  I  can't  help  seeing 
an  enemy  in  any  one  who  breaks  in  upon  my  work- 
ing summer.  .  .  .  The  idea  that  any  person 
should  intrude  upon  the  web  of  thought  which  I 
am  spinning  around  me,  is  simply  appalling.  I 
have  no  more  time  to  lose  —  unless  I  am  stingy 
with  my  precious  half-hours  I  shall  have  a  bad 
conscience."  2  Half -hours ;  his  eyes  will  not  work 
for  more  than  thirty  minutes  at  a  time.  He 
feels  that  only  to  him  to  whom  time  is  holy  does 
time  bring  reward.  "He  is  fully  convinced,"  an 
acquaintance  writes  of  him,  "about  his  mission 

1  Chronology  of  Nietzsche's  chief  works,  with  initials 
used  in  subsequent  references :  Thoughts  Out  of  Season 
("T.  0.  S.")  (1873-6);  Human  All  Too  Human  ("H.  H.") 
(1876-80)  ;  Dawn  of  Day  ("  D.  £>.")  (1881) ;  Joyful  Wisdom 
("J.  W.")  (1882) ;  Thus  Spake  Zarathustra  ("Z.")  (1883-4) ; 
Beyond  Good  and  Evil  ("B.  G.  E.")  (1886);  Genealogy  of 
Morals  ("<7.  M.")  (1887);  Twilight  of  the  Idols  ('T.I.") 
(1888);  Antichrist  (" Antich.") ;  Ecce  Homo  ("E.  H."),  and 
Will  to  Power  ("  W.  P.")  (1889). 

*  Lonely  N.,  p.  104. 


NIETZSCHE  125 

and  his  permanent  importance.  In  this  belief 
he  is  strong  and  great ;  it  elevates  him  above 
all  misfortune."  i  He  speaks  of  his  Thus  Spake 
Zarathustra  in  terms  of  almost  conscious  exaggera- 
tion :  "It  is  a  book,"  he  says,  "that  stands  alone. 
Do  not  let  us  mention  the  poets  in  the  same 
breath  ;  nothing  perhaps  has  ever  been  produced 
out  of  such  a  superabundance  of  strength." 2 
He  does  not  know  that  it  is  his  illness  and  his 
hunger  for  appreciation  that  have  demanded  this 
self-laudation  as  restorative  and  nourishment. 
He  predicts,  rightly  enough,  that  he  will  not  be- 
gin to  get  his  due  meed  of  appreciation  till  vl901.3 
His  "unmasking  of  Christian  morality,"  he  says, 
"is  an  event  unequalled  in  history."  4 

All  this  man's  energy  is  in  his  brain ;  he  oozes 
ideas  at  every  pore.  He  crowds  into  a  sentence 
the  material  of  a  chapter ;  and  every  aphorism  is 
a  mountain-peak.  He  dares  to  say  that  which 
others  dare  only  to  think :  and  we  call  him  witty 
because  truth  tabooed  is  the  soul  of  wit.  Every 
page  bears  the  imprint  of  the  passion  and  the  pain 
that  gave  it  birth.  "I  am  not  a  man,"  he  says, 
"I  am  dynamite"  ;  he  writes  like  a  man  who  feels 
error  after  error  exploding  at  his  touch ;  and  he 
defines  a  philosopher  as  "a  terrible  explosive  in 
the  presence  of  which  everything  is  in  danger."  6 
"There  are  more  idols  than  realities  in  the  world  ; 
and  I  have  an  'evil  eye'  for  idols."  8 

ilbid.,  p.  195.  *E.  H.,p.  106.  »/.  W.,  §371. 

*E.  H.,  p.  141.  *Ibid.,  pp.  131,  81.         •  T.  I.,  pref. 


126      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

What  is  this  philosophy  which  seemed  to  its 
creator  more  important  than  even  the  mightiest 
events  of  the  past?  How  shall  we  compress  it 
without  distorting  it,  as  it  has  been  distorted  by  so 
many  of  its  lovers  and  its  haters  ?  Let  us  ask  the 
man  himself  to  speak  to  us ;  let  us  see  if  we  cannot 
put  the  matter  in  his  own  words,  ourselves  but 
supplying,  so  to  speak,  connective  tissue.  That 
done,  we  shall  understand  the  man  better,  and 
ourselves,  and  perhaps  our  social  problem. 

Ill 
Exposition 


Morality  as  Impotence 

From  a  biological  standpoint  the  phenomenon 
morality  is  of  a  highly  suspicious  nature.1  Cui 
bono  ?  —  Whom  shall  we  suspect  of  profiting  by 
this  institution  ?  Is  it  a  mode  of  enhancing  life  ? 
—  Does  it  make  men  stronger  and  more  perfect  ?  — 
or  does  it  make  for  deterioration  and  decay?  It 
is  obvious  that  up  to  the  present,  morality  has 
not  been  a  problem  at  all ;  it  has  rather  been  the 
very  ground  on  which  people  have  met  after  all 
distrust,  dissension,  and  contradiction,  the  hal- 
lowed place  of  peace,  where  thinkers  could  obtain 
rest  even  from  themselves.2     But  what  if  morality 

1  W.  P.,  §  400  (all  references  to  W.  P.  will  be  by  sections). 
1  J.  W.,   §  345  (all  references  to  J.  W.  by  section  unless 
otherwise  stated). 


NIETZSCHE  127 

be  the  greatest  of  all  the  stumbling-blocks  in  the 
way  of  human  self -betterment  ?  Is  it  possible  that 
morality  itself  is  the  social  problem,  and  that  the 
solution  of  that  problem  lies  in  the  judicious  aboli- 
tion of  morality?  It  is  a  view  for  which  some- 
thing can  be  said. 

You  have  heard  that  morality  is  a  means  used 
by  the  strong  to  control  the  weak.  And  it  is  true  : 
just  consider  the  conversion  of  Constantine. 
But  to  stop  here  is  to  let  half  the  truth  be  passed 
off  on  you  as  the  whole ;  and  half  a  truth  is  half 
a  lie.  Much  more  true  is  it  that  morality  is  a 
means  used  by  the  weak  to  control  the  strong,  the 
chain  which  weakness  softly  lays  upon  the  feet  of 
strength.  The  whole  of  the  morality  of  Europe 
is  based  upon  the  values  which  are  useful  to  the 
herd.1  Every  one's  desire  is  that  there  should  be 
no  other  teaching  and  valuation  of  things  than 
those  by  means  of  which  he  himself  succeeds. 
Thus  the  fundamental  tendency  of  the  weak  and 
mediocre  of  all  times  has  been  to  enfeeble  the 
strong  and  to  reduce  them  to  the  level  of  the 
weak ;  their  chief  weapon  in  this  process  was  the 
moral  principle.2  Good  is  every  one  who  does 
not  oppress,  who  hurts  no  one,  attacks  no  one,  does 
not  take  vengeance  but  hands  over  vengeance  to 
God ;  who  goes  out  of  the  way  of  evil,  and  de- 
mands little  from  life ;  like  ourselves,  patient, 
meek,  just.  Good  is  to  do  nothing  for  which  we 
are    not    strong    enough.3    Zarathustra    laughed 

iPF.  P.,276.  'Ibid.,  345.  »  G.  M„  p.  46. 


128      PHILOSOPHY    AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

many  times  over  the  weaklings  who  thought 
themselves  good  because  they  had  lame  paws ! x 
Obedience,  subordination,  submission,  devotion, 
love,  the  pride  of  duty ;  fatalism,  resignation, 
objectivity,  stoicism,  asceticism,  self-denial ;  in 
short,  anemia :  these  are  the  virtues  which  the 
herd  would  have  all  men  cultivate,  —  particularly 
the  strong  men.2  And  the  deification  of  Jesus,  — 
that  is  to  say  of  meekness,  —  what  was  it  but 
another  attempt  to  lull  the  strong  to  sleep  ? 


Democracy 

See,  now,  how  nearly  that  attempt  has  suc- 
ceeded. For  is  not  democracy,  if  not  victorious, 
at  least  on  the  road  to  victory  to-day  ?  And  what 
is  the  democratic  movement  but  the  inheritor 
of  Christianity  ? 3  Not  the  Christianity  of  the 
great  popes ;  they  knew  better,  and  were  building 
a  splendid  aristocracy  when  Luther  spoiled  it  all 
by  letting  loose  the  levelling  instincts  of  the 
herd.4  The  instinct  of  the  herd  is  in  favor  of  the 
leveller  (Christ).5  I  very  much  fear  that  the  first 
Christian  is  in  his  deepest  instincts  a  rebel  against 
everything  privileged ;  he  lives  and  struggles  un- 
remittingly for  "equal  rights."  6  It  is  by  Chris- 
tianity, more  than  by  anything  else,  that  the 
poison   of  this  doctrine  of   "equal   rights"   has 

1  Z.,  p.  166.  *  W.  P.,  721 ;    T.  I.,  p.  89. 

»  B.  G.  E.,  §  202.  *  J.  W.,  358 ;  Antich.,  §  361. 

•  W.  P.,  284.  *  Antich.,  §  46. 


NIETZSCHE  129 

been  spread  abroad.  And  do  not  let  us  under- 
estimate the  fatal  influence!  Nowadays  no  one 
has  the  courage  of  special  rights,  of  rights  of 
dominion.  The  aristocratic  attitude  of  mind 
has  been  most  thoroughly  undermined  by  the  lie 
of  the  equality  of  souls.1 

But  is  not  this  the  greatest  of  all  lies  —  the 
"equality  of  men  "  ?  That  is  to  say,  the  dominion 
of  the  inferior.  Is  it  not  the  most  threadbare  and 
discredited  of  ideas?  Democracy  represents  the 
disbelief  in  all  great  men  and  select  classes ; 
everybody  equals  everybody  else;  "at  bottom  we 
are  all  herd."  There  is  no  welcome  for  the  genius 
here ;  the  more  promising  for  the  future  the 
modern  individual  happens  to  be,  the  more  suffer- 
ing falls  to  his  lot.2  If  the  rise  of  great  and  rare 
men  had  been  made  dependent  upon  the  voices 
of  the  multitude,  there  never  would  have  been  any 
such  thing  as  a  great  man.  The  herd  regards 
the  exception,  whether  it  be  above  or  beneath  its 
general  level,  as  something  antagonistic  and  dan- 
gerous. Their  trick  in  dealing  with  the  excep- 
tions above  them  —  the  strong,  the  mighty, 
the  wise,  the  fruitful  —  is  to  persuade  them  to 
become  their  head-servants.3 

But  the  torture  of  the  exceptional  soul  is  only 
part  of  the  villainy  of  democracies.  The  other 
part  is  chaos.  Voltaire  was  right:  "Quand  la 
populace  se  mele  de  raisonner,   tout  est  perdu." 

1  Ibid.,  §  43.  » Ibid.,  885,  281. 

1  W.  P.,  464,  861,  748,  752,  686. 

K 


130      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

Democracy  is  an  aristocracy  of  orators,  a  com- 
petition in  headlines,  a  maelstrom  of  ever  new 
majorities,  a  torrent  of  petty  factions  sweeping 
on  to  ruin.  Under  democracy  the  state  will  de- 
cay, for  the  instability  of  legislation  will  leave 
little  respect  for  law,  until  finally  even  the  police- 
man will  have  to  be  replaced  by  private  enter- 
prise.1 Democracy  has  always  been  the  death- 
agony  of  the  power  of  organization  : 2  remember 
Athens,  and  look  at  England.  Within  fifty  years 
these  Babel  governments  will  clash  in  a  gigantic 
war  for  the  control  of  the  markets  of  the  world ; 
and  when  that  war  comes,  England  will  pay  the 
penalty  for  the  democratic  inefficiency  of  its 
dominant  muddle-class.3 

This  wave  of  democracy  will  recede,  and  recede 
quickly,  if  men  of  ability  will  only  oppose  it 
openly.  It  is  necessary  for  higher  men  to  declare 
war  on  the  masses.  In  all  directions  mediocre 
people  are  joining  hands  in  order  to  make  them- 
selves master.  The  middle  classes  must  be  dis- 
solved, and  their  influence  decreased  ; 4  there  must 
be  no  more  intermarrying  of  aristocracy  with  plu- 
tocracy ;  this  democratic  folly  would  never  have 
come  at  all  had  not  the  master-classes  allowed 
their  blood  to  be  mingled  with  that  of  slaves.5 
Let  us  fight  parliamentary  government  and  the 
power  of  the  press ;    they  are  the  means  whereby 

i  H.  H.,  §§  428,  472.  *  T.  I.,  p.  96. 

>  G.  M.,  p.  225  ;    written  in  1887.  *  W.  P.,  861,  891. 

«  B.  G.  E.,  p.  233. 


NIETZSCHE  131 

cattle  become  rulers.1  Finally,  it  is  senseless  and 
dangerous  to  let  the  counting-mania  (the  custom 
of  universal  suffrage)  —  which  is  still  but  a  short 
time  under  cultivation,  and  could  easily  be  up- 
rooted —  take  deeper  root ;  its  introduction  was 
merely  an  expedient  to  steer  clear  of  temporary 
difficulties ;  the  time  is  ripe  for  a  demonstration 
of  democratic  incompetence  and  a  restoration  of 
power  to  men  who  are  born  to  rule.2 


Feminism 

Democracy,  after  all,  is  a  disease ;  an  attempt 
on  the  part  of  the  botched  to  lay  down  for  all  the 
laws  of  social  health.  You  may  observe  the  dis- 
ease in  its  growth-process  by  studying  the  woman 
movement.  Woman's  first  and  last  function  is 
that  of  bearing  robust  children.3  The  emanci- 
pated ones  are  the  abortions  among  women,  those 
who  lack  the  wherewithal  to  have  children  (I  go 
no  farther,  lest  I  should  become  medicynical).4 
All  intellect  in  women  is  a  pretension ;  when  a 
woman  has  scholarly  inclinations  there  is  generally 
something  wrong  with  her  sex.  These  women 
think  to  make  themselves  charming  to  free  spirits 
by  wearing  advanced  views ;  as  though  a  woman 
without  piety  would  not  be  something  perfectly 
obnoxious  and  ludicrous  to  a  profound  and  god- 

1  W.  P.,  753.  i  G.  M.,  p.  223. 

*  B.  G.  E.,  p.  189.  *  E.  H„  p.  65. 


132      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE   SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

less  man  ! l  If  there  is  anything  worthy  of  laugh- 
ter it  is  the  man  who  takes  part  in  this  feminist 
agitation.  Let  it  be  understood  clearly  that  the 
relations  between  men  and  women  make  equality 
impossible.  It  is  in  the  nature  of  woman  to  take 
color  and  commandment  from  a  man,  —  unless 
she  happens  to  be  a  man.  Man's  happiness  is  "I 
will,"  woman's  happiness  is  "  He  will."  2  Woman 
gives  herself,  man  takes  her :  I  do  not  think  one 
will  get  over  this  natural  contrast  by  any  social 
contract.3  Indeed,  women  will  lose  power  with 
every  step  towards  emancipation.  Since  the 
French  Revolution  the  influence  of  woman  has 
declined  in  proportion  as  she  has  increased  her 
rights  and  claims.  Let  her  first  do  her  proper 
work  properly  (consider  how  much  man  has  suf- 
fered from  stupidity  in  the  kitchen),  and  then  it 
may  be  time  to  consider  an  extension  of  her  ac- 
tivities. To  be  mistaken  in  this  fundamental 
problem  of  "man  and  woman,"  to  deny  here  the 
profoundest  antagonism,  and  the  necessity  for 
an  eternally  hostile  tension,  to  dream  here  of 
equal  rights,  equal  training,  equal  claims  and  ob- 
ligations :  that  is  a  typical  sign  of  shallow-minded- 
ness.  On  the  other  hand,  a  man  who  has  depth 
of  spirit  as  well  as  of  desires,  and  has  also  the 
depth  of  benevolence  which  is  capable  of  severity 
and  harshness,  and  easily  confounded  with  them, 
can  only  think  of  woman  as  Orientals  do :  he 
must  conceive  of  her  as  a  possession,  as  confinable 

»  B.  G.  E.,  pp.  96,  189.         *  Z„  p.  89.         *  J.  W„  363. 


NIETZSCHE  133 

property,  as  a  being  predestined  for  service  and 
accomplishing  her  mission  therein  —  he  must 
take  his  stand  in  this  matter  upon  the  immense 
rationality  of  Asia,  upon  the  superiority  of  the 
instincts  of  Asia.1 


Socialism  and  Anarchism 

All  this  uprising  of  housekeepers  is,  of 
course,  part  of  the  general  sickness  with  which 
Christianity  has  inoculated  and  weakened  the 
strong  races  of  Europe.  Consider  now  the  more 
virulent  forms  of  the  disease  :  socialism  and  anar- 
chism. The  coming  of  the  "kingdom  of  God" 
has  here  been  placed  in  the  future,  and  been  given 
an  earthly,  a  human,  meaning ;  but  on  the  whole 
the  faith  in  the  old  ideal  is  still  maintained. 
There  is  still  the  comforting  delusion  about  equal 
rights,  with  all  the  envy  that  lurks  in  that  delu- 
sion. One  speaks  of  "equal  rights":  that  is  to 
say,  so  long  as  one  is  not  a  dominant  personality, 
one  wishes  to  prevent  one's  competitors  from  grow- 
ing in  power.2  It  is  a  pleasure  for  all  poor  devils 
to  grumble  —  it  gives  them  a  little  intoxicating 
sensation  of  power.  There  is  a  small  dose  of  re- 
venge in  every  lamentation.3  When  you  hear  one 
of  those  reformers  talk  of  humanity,  you  must  not 
take  him  seriously ;    it  is  only  his  way  of  getting 

1  B.  O.  E.,  pp.  188,  184,  189.  *  W.  P.,  339,  86. 

«  T.  I.,  p.  86. 


134      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

fools  to  believe  that  he  is  an  altruist ;  beneath  the 
cover  of  this  buncombe  a  man  strong  in  the  gre- 
garious instincts  makes  his  bid  for  fame  and  fol- 
lowers and  power.  This  pretense  to  altruism  is 
only  a  roundabout  way  of  asking  for  altruism, 
it  is  the  result  of  a  consciousness  of  the  fact  that 
one  is  botched  and  bungled.1  In  short,  socialism 
is  not  justice  but  covetousness.2  No  doubt  we 
should  look  upon  its  exponents  and  followers  with 
ironic  compassion :  they  want  something  which 
we  have.3 

From  the  standpoint  of  natural  science  the  high- 
est conception  of  society  according  to  socialists 
is  the  lowest  in  the  order  of  rank  among  societies. 
A  socialist  community  would  be  another  China, 
a  vast  and  stifling  mediocracy;  it  would  be  the 
tyranny  of  the  lowest  and  most  brainless  brought 
to  its  zenith.4  A  nation  in  which  there  would 
be  no  exploitation  would  be  dead.  Life  itself  is 
essentially  appropriation,  conquest  of  the  strange 
and  weak ;  to  put  it  at  its  mildest,  exploitation.6 
The  absence  of  exploitation  would  mean  the  end 
of  organic  functioning.  Surely  it  is  as  legitimate 
and  valuable  for  superior  men  to  command  and 
use  inferior  men  as  it  is  for  superior  species  to  com- 
mand and  use  inferior  species,  as  man  commands 
and  uses  animals.6  It  is  not  surprising  that  the 
lamb  should  bear  a  grudge  against  the  great  birds 

»  J.  W.,  377  ;  W.  P.,  350,  315,  373.  2  H.  H.,  §  451. 

3  W.  P.,  761.  *  Ibid.,  51,  125. 

6  B.  G.  E.,  p.  226.  «  W.  P.,  856. 


NIETZSCHE  135 

of  prey,  but  that  is  no  reason  for  blaming  the 
great  birds  of  prey.1  What  should  be  done  with 
muscle  except  to  supply  it  with  directive  brains? 
How,  otherwise,  can  anything  worthy  ever  be 
built  by  men  ?  In  fact,  man  has  value  and  signifi- 
cance only  in  so  far  as  he  is  a  stone  in  a  great 
building ;  for  which  purpose  he  has  first  of  all  to 
be  solid ;  he  has  to  be  a  "stone."  2 

Now  the  common  people  understand  this  quite 
well,  and  are  as  happy  as  any  of  the  well-to-do, 
so  long  as  a  silly  propaganda  does  not  disturb 
them  with  dreams  that  can  never  be  fulfilled.3 
Poverty,  cheerfulness,  and  independence  —  it  is 
possible  to  find  these  three  qualities  combined  in 
one  individual ;  poverty,  cheerfulness,  and  slavery 
—  this  is  likewise  a  possible  combination :  and  I 
can  say  nothing  better  to  the  workmen  who  serve 
as  factory-slaves.4 

As  for  the  upper  classes,  they  need  be  at  no  loss 
for  weapons  with  which  to  fight  this  pestilence. 
An  occasional  opening  of  the  trap-door  between 
the  Haves  and  the  Have-nots,  increasing  the 
number  of  property-owners,  will  serve  best  of  all. 
If  this  policy  is  pursued,  there  will  always  be  too 
many  people  of  property  for  socialism  ever  to  sig- 
nify anything  more  than  an  attack  of  illness.6 
A  little  patience  with  inheritance  and  income 
taxes,  and  the  noise  of  the  cattle  will  subside.6 

1  G.  M.,  p.  44.  *  J.  W.,  356.  3  Lonely  N.,  p.  83. 

'  D.  D.,  §  206.  '  W.  P.,  125. 

«  Wanderer  and  His  Shadow,  §  292  (H.  H.,  ii,  p.  343).     , 


136      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

Notice,  meanwhile,  that  socialism  and  despotism 
are  bedfellows.  Give  the  socialist  his  way,  and 
he  will  put  everything  into  the  hands  of  the  state, 
—  that  is  to  say,  into  the  hands  of  demagogue 
politicians.1  And  then,  all  in  the  twinkling  of 
an  eye,  socialism  begets  its  opposite  in  good 
Hegelian  fashion,  and  the  dogs  of  anarchism  are 
let  loose  to  fill  the  world  with  their  howling.  And 
not  without  excuse  or  benefit ;  for  politicians  must 
be  kept  in  their  place,  and  the  state  rigidly  re- 
stricted to  its  necessary  functions,  even  if  anar- 
chist agitation  helps  one  to  do  it.2  And  the  anar- 
chists are  right :  the  state  is  the  coldest  of  all 
monsters,  and  this  lie  creeps  out  of  its  mouth,  "I, 
the  State,  am  the  people."  3  So  the  wise  man 
will  turn  anarchism,  as  well  as  socialism,  to  ac- 
count ;  and  he  will  not  fret  even  when  a  king  or 
two  is  hurried  into  heaven  with  nitroglycerine. 
Only  since  they  have  been  shot  at  have  princes 
once  more  sat  securely  on  their  thrones.4 

Anarchism  justifies  itself  in  the  aristocrat,  who 
feels  law  as  his  instrument,  not  as  his  master; 
but  the  rebellion  against  law  as  such  is  but  one 
more  outburst  of  physiological  misfits  bent  on 
levelling  and  revenge.5  It  is  childish  to  desire 
a  society  in  which  every  individual  would  have  as 
much  freedom  as  another.6  Decadence  speaks  in 
the  democratic  idiosyncrasy  against  everything 

>  H.  H.,  i,  §  473.  »  D.  D.,  §  179. 

«  Z.,  p.  62.  «  W.  P.,  329. 

«  T.  I.,  p.  86  ;   E.  H.,  p.  66 ;  Antich.,  §  57. 
e  W.  P.,  859. 


NIETZSCHE  137 

which  rules  and  wishes  to  rule,  the  modern  mis- 
archism  (to  coin  a  bad  word  for  a  bad  thing).1 
When  all  men  are  strong  enough  to  command, 
then  law  will  be  superfluous ;  weakness  needs  the 
vertebrae  of  law.  He  is  commanded  who  cannot 
obey  his  own  self.  Let  the  anarchist  be  thankful 
that  he  has  laws  to  obey.  To  command  is  more 
difficult ;  whenever  living  things  command  they 
risk  themselves ;  they  take  the  hard  responsibili- 
ties for  the  result.2  Freedom  is  the  will  to  be  re- 
sponsible for  ourselves ; 3  when  the  mob  is  capable 
of  that,  it  will  be  time  to  think  of  dispensing  with 
law.  The  truth  is,  of  course,  that  the  anarchist 
is  lulled  into  nonsense  by  Rousseau's  notion  of  the 
naturally  good  man.  He  does  not  understand 
that  revolution  merely  unlashes  the  dogs  in  man, 
till  they  once  more  cry  for  the  whip.4  Cast  out 
the  Bourbons,  and  in  ten  years  you  will  welcome 
Napoleon. 

That  is  the  end  of  anarchism ;  and  it  is  the  end 
of  democracy,  too. 

The  truth  is  that  men  are  willing  and  anxious 
to  be  ruled  by  rulers  worthy  of  the  name.  But 
the  corrupted  ruling  classes  have  brought  ruling 
into  evil  odor.  The  degeneration  of  the  ruler 
and  of  the  ruling  classes  has  been  the  cause  of  aD 
the  disorders  in  history.  Democracy  is  not  rul- 
ing, but  drifting;  it  is  a  political  relaxation,  as 
if  an  organism  were  to  allow  each  of  its  parts  to 

'G.  M.,  p.  91.  'Z.,  p.  159. 

'  T.  I.,  p.  94.  *  H.  H.,  §  463. 


138      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

do  just  as  it  pleased.  Precisely  these  disorganizing 
principles  give  our  age  its  specific  character.  Our 
society  has  lost  the  power  to  function  properly ; 
it  no  longer  rids  itself  naturally  of  its  rotten  ele- 
ments ;  it  no  longer  has  the  strength  even  to  ex- 
crete.1 


Degeneration 

What  kind  of  men  is  to  be  found  in  such  a 
society  ?  Mediocre  men  ;  men  stupid  to  the  point 
of  sanctity ;  fragile,  useless  souls-de-luxe ;  men 
suffering  from  a  sort  of  hemiplegia  of  virtue,  — 
that  is  to  say,  paralyzed  in  the  self-assertive  in- 
stincts; men  tamed,  almost  emasculated  by  a 
morality  whose  essence  is  the  abdication  of  the 
will.2  Now,  as  a  rule,  the  taming  of  a  beast  is 
achieved  only  by  deteriorating  it ;  so  too  the  moral 
man  is  not  a  better  man,  he  is  rather  a  weaker 
member  of  his  species.  He  is  altruistic,  of  course ; 
that  is,  he  feels  that  he  needs  help.  There  is  no 
place  for  really  great  men  in  this  march  towards 
nonentity;  if  a  great  man  appears  he  is  called 
a  criminal.3  A  Periclean  Greek,  a  Renaissance 
Florentine,  would  breathe  like  one  asphyxiated 
in  this  moralic  acid  atmosphere;  the  first  condi- 
tion of  life  for  such  a  man  is  that  he  free  himself 
from  this  Chinadom  of  the  spirit.4     But  the  num- 

•  W.  P.,  750,  874,  G5,  50. 

>  B.  G.  E.,  p.  173 ;    W.  P.,  823,  851,  871,  11. 

»  W.  P.,  397,  12,  736.  *  E.  H„  p.  136. 


NIETZSCHE  139 

ber  of  those  who  are  capable  of  rising  into  the  pure 
air  of  unmoralism  is  very  small ;  and  those  who 
have  made  timid  sallies  into  theological  heresy- 
are  the  most  addicted  to  the  comfort  and  security 
of  ethical  orthodoxy.  In  short,  men  are  coming 
to  look  upon  lowered  vitality  as  the  heart  of 
virtue;  and  morality  will  be  saddled  with  the 
guilt  if  the  maximum  potentiality  of  the  power 
and  splendor  of  the  human  species  should  never 
be  attained.1 

Men  of  this  stamp  require  a  good  deal  of  reli- 
gious pepsin  to  overcome  the  indigestibility  of 
life ;  if  they  leave  one  faith  in  the  passing  bravery 
of  their  youth  they  soon  sink  back  into  another.2 
God,  previously  diluted  from  tribal  deity  into 
substantia  and  ding-an-sich,3  now  recovers  a  re- 
spectable degree  of  reality ;  the  imaginary  pillar 
on  which  men  lean  is  made  stronger  and  more 
concrete  as  their  weakness  increases.  How  much 
faith  a  person  requires  in  order  to  flourish,  how 
much  fixed  opinion  he  needs  which  he  does  not 
wish  to  have  shaken,  because  he  holds  himself 
thereby,  —  is  a  measure  of  his  power  (or  more 
plainly  speaking,  of  his  weakness).4 

The  same  criterion  classifies  our  friends  the 
metaphysicians,  —  those  albinos  of  thought,  —  who 
are,  of  course,  priests  in  disguise.6  The  degree  of 
a  man's  will-power  may  be  measured  by  the  extent 
to  which  he  can  dispense  with  the  meaning  in 

lG.M.,  p.  10.  «  T.  O.  8.,  i,  p.  78.  *  Antich.,  §  17. 

•  /.  W.,  847.  •  Anlich.,  §  17 ;  D.  D.,  §  542. 


140      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

things ;  by  the  extent  to  which  he  is  able  to  endure 
a  world  without  meaning;  because  he  himself 
arranges  a  small  portion  of  it.1  The  world  has  no 
meaning  :  all  the  better ;  put  some  meaning  into 
it,  says  the  man  with  a  man's  heart.  The  world 
has  no  meaning  :  but  it  is  only  a  world  of  appear- 
ance, says  the  weak-kneed  philosopher;  behind 
this  phenomenal  world  is  the  real  world,  which 
has  meaning,  and  means  good.  Of  the  real  world 
"there  is  no  knowledge;  consequently  there  is 
a  God"  —  what  novel  elegance  of  syllogism!2 
This  belief  that  the  world  which  ought  to  be  is 
real  is  a  belief  proper  to  the  unfruitful  who  do  not 
wish  to  create  a  world.  The  "will  to  truth"  is 
the  impotence  of  the  "will  to  create."3  Even 
monism  is  being  turned  into  medicine  for  sick 
souls;  clearly  these  lovers  of  wisdom  seek  not 
truth,  but  remedies  for  their  illnesses.4  There 
is  too  much  beer  and  midnight  oil  in  modern 
philosophy,  and  not  enough  fresh  air.6  Philoso- 
phers condemn  this  world  because  they  have 
avoided  it ;  those  who  are  contemplative  naturally 
belittle  activity.6  In  truth,  the  history  of  phi- 
losophy is  the  story  of  a  secret  and  mad  hatred 
of  the  prerequisites  of  life,  of  the  feelings  which 
make  for  the  real  values  of  life.7  No  wonder 
that  philosophy  is  fallen  to  such  low  estate. 
Science  flourishes  nowadays,  and  has  the  good 

1  W.  P.,  585.  2  G.  M.,  p.  202.  8  W.  P.,  585. 

* Ibid.,  600  ;    D.  D.,  §  424.  6  J.  W.,  366. 

•£>.£>.,  §41.  7  IF.  P.,  461. 


NIETZSCHE  141 

conscience  clearly  visible  on  its  countenance ; 
while  the  remnant  to  which  modern  philosophy 
has  gradually  sunk  excites  distrust  and  displeas- 
ure, if  not  scorn  and  pity.  Philosophy  reduced 
to  a  "theory  of  knowledge,"  a  philosophy  that 
never  gets  beyond  the  threshold,  and  rigorously 
denies  itself  the  right  to  enter  —  that  is  philoso- 
phy in  its  last  throes,  an  end,  an  agony ;  some- 
thing that  awakens  pity.  How  could  such  a  phi- 
losophy rule!1 

6 

Nihilism 

All  these  things,  democracy,  feminism,  social- 
ism, anarchism,  and  modern  philosophy,  are  heads 
of  the  Christian  hydra,  each  a  sore  in  the  total 
disease.  Given  such  illness,  affecting  all  parts  of 
the  social  body,  and  what  result  shall  we  expect 
and  find  ?  Pessimism,  despair,  nihilism,  —  that 
is,  disbelief  in  all  values  of  life.2  Confidence  in 
life  is  gone;  life  itself  has  become  a  problem. 
Love  of  life  is  still  possible,  —  only  it  is  the  love 
of  a  woman  of  whom  one  is  doubtful.3  The 
"good  man"  sees  himself  surrounded  by  evil, 
discovers  traces  of  evil  in  every  one  of  his  acts. 
And  thus  he  ultimately  arrives  at  the  conclusion, 
which  to  him  is  quite  logical,  that  nature  is  evil, 
that  man  is  corrupted,  and  that  being  good  is  an  act 
of  grace  (that  is  to  say,  it  is  impossible  to  man 

1  B.  G.  E.,  p.  136.  *  W.  P.,  §  8.  »  J.  W.,  p.  7. 


142      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE   SOCIAL   PROBLEM 


l 


when  he  stands  alone).  In  short,  he  denies  life 
The  man  who  frees  himself  from  the  theology  of 
the  Church  but  adheres  to  Christian  ethics  neces- 
sarily falls  into  pessimism.  He  perceives  that  man 
is  no  longer  an  assistant  in,  let  alone  the  culmina- 
tion of,  the  evolutionary  process;  he  perceives 
that  Becoming  has  been  aiming  at  Nothing,  and 
has  achieved  it ;  and  that  is  something  which  he 
cannot  bear.2  Suffering,  which  was,  before,  a 
trial  with  promised  reward,  is  now  an  intolerable 
mystery ;  if  he  is  materially  comfortable  himself, 
he  finds  source  for  sentiment  and  tears  in  the  pain 
and  misery  of  others;  he  concocts  a  "social 
problem,"  and  never  dreams  that  the  social 
problem  is  itself  a  result  of  decadence.3  He  does 
not  feel  at  home  in  this  world  in  which  the  Chris- 
tian God  is  dead,  and  to  which,  nevertheless,  he 
brings  nothing  more  appreciative  than  the  old 
Christian  moral  attitude.  He  despairs  because  he 
is  a  chaos,  and  knows  it;  "I  do  not  know  where 
I  am,  or  what  I  am  to  do ;  I  am  everything  that 
knows  not  where  it  is  or  what  to  do,"  he  sighs 
Life,  he  says  at  last,  is  not  worth  living. 

Let  us  not  try  to  answer  such  a  man ;  he  needs 
not  logic  but  a  sanitarium.  But  see,  through  him, 
and  in  him,  the  destructiveness  of  Christian  morals. 
This  despicable  civilization,  says  Rousseau,  is  to 
blame  for  our  bad  morality.  What  if  our  good 
morality  is  to  blame  for  this  despicable  civiliza- 

1  W.  P.,  §  351.  *  Ibid.,  §  12. 

•  Ibid.,  §  43.  *  Antich.,  §  1. 


4 


NIETZSCHE  143 

tion?  l  See  how  the  old  ethic  depreciates  the  joy 
of  living,  and  the  gratitude  felt  towards  life ;  how 
it  checks  the  knowledge  and  unfolding  of  life ; 
how  it  chokes  the  impulse  to  beautify  and  ennoble 
life.2  And  at  what  a  time !  Think  what  a  race 
with  masculine  will  could  accomplish  now !  Pre- 
cisely now,  when  will  in  its  fullest  strength  were 
necessary,  it  is  in  the  weakest  and  most  pusillani- 
mous condition.  Absolute  mistrust  concerning 
the  organizing  power  of  the  will :  to  that  we  have 
come.3  The  world  is  dark  with  despair  at  the 
moment  of  greatest  light. 

What  if  man  could  be  made  to,  love  the  light  and 
use  it? 


The  Will  to  Power 

Is  it  possible  that  this  despair  is  not  the  final 
state  in  the  exhaustion  of  a  race,  but  only  a  tran- 
sition from  belief  in  a  perfect  and  ethical  world 
to  an  attitude  of  transvaluation  and  control  ?  4 
Perhaps  we  are  at  the  bottom  of  our  spiritual  to- 
boggan, and  an  ascending  movement  is  around 
the  corner  of  the  years.  Now  that  our  Christian 
bubble  has  burst  into  Schopenhauer,  we  are  left 
free  to  recover  some  part  of  the  joyous  strength 
of  the  ancients.  Let  us  become  again  as  little 
children,  unspoiled  by  religion  and  morality ;  let 
us  forget  what  it  is  to  feel  sinful ;  let  the  thou- 

»  D.  D.,  §  163.  *  W.  P.,  266. 

'  Ibid.,  20.  *  Ibid.,  585. 


144      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

sandfold  laughter  of  children  clear  the  air  of  the 
odor  of  decay.  Let  us  begin  anew ;  and  the  soul 
will  rise  and  overflow  all  its  margins  with  the  joy 
of  rediscovered  life.1  Life  has  not  deceived  us! 
On  the  contrary,  from  year  to  year  it  appears 
richer,  more  desirable,  and  more  mysterious ;  the 
old  fetters  are  broken  by  the  thought  that  life 
may  be  an  experiment  and  not  a  duty,  not  a  fatal- 
ity, not  a  deceit ! 2  Life  —  that  means  for  us  to 
transform  constantly  into  light  and  flame  all  that 
we  are,  and  also  all  that  we  meet  with ;  we  cannot 
possibly  do  otherwise.3  To  be  natural  again,  to 
dare  to  be  as  immoral  as  nature  is;  to  be  such 
pagans  as  were  the  Greeks  of  the  Homeric  age, 
to  say  Yea  to  life,  even  to  its  suffering;  to  win 
back  some  of  that  mountain-air  Dionysian  spirit 
which  took  pleasure  in  the  tragic,  nay,  which  in- 
vented tragedy  as  the  expression  of  its  super- 
abundant vitality,  as  the  expression  of  its  welcome 
of  even  the  cruelest  and  most  terrible  elements  of 
life  ! 4    To  be  healthy  once  more ! 

For  there  is  no  other  virtue  than  health,  vigor, 
energy.  All  virtues  should  be  looked  upon  as 
physiological  conditions,  and  moral  judgments 
are  symptoms  of  physiological  prosperity  or  the 
reverse.  Indeed,  it  might  be  worth  while  to  try 
to  see  whether  a  scientific  order  of  values  might 

1  Z.,  pp.  193,  315  ;  E.  H.,  pp.  71,  28.  *  J.  W.,  §  324. 

*Ibid.,  p.  6. 

*  W.  P.,   120,    1029;  Antich.,    §55;      E.  H.,  pp.  72,   70; 

Birth  of  Tragedy,  passim. 


NIETZSCHE  145 

not  be  constructed  according  to  a  scale  of  num- 
bers and  measures  representing  energy.  All  other 
values  are  matters  of  prejudice,  simplicity,  and 
misunderstanding.1  Instead  of  moral  values  let 
us  use  naturalistic  values,  physiological  values ; 
let  us  say  frankly  with  Spinoza  that  virtue  and 
power  are  one  and  the  same.  What  is  good? 
All  that  enhances  the  feeling  of  power,  the  will  to 
power,  and  power  itself,  in  man.  What  is  bad? 
All  that  proceeds  from  weakness.  What  is  happi- 
ness ?  The  feeling  that  power  is  increasing,  that 
resistance  is  being  overcome.2  This  is  not  ortho- 
dox ethics;  and  perhaps  it  will  not  do  for  long 
ears,  —  though  an  unspoiled  youth  would  under- 
stand it.  A  healthy  and  vigorous  boy  will  look 
up  sarcastically  if  you  ask  him,  "Do  you  wish 
to  become  virtuous?"  —  but  ask  him,  "Do  you 
wish  to  become  stronger  than  your  comrades?" 
and  he  is  all  eagerness  at  once.3  Youth  knows 
that  ability  is  virtue;  watch  the  athletic  field. 
Youth  is  not  at  home  in  the  class  room,  because 
there  knowledge  is  estranged  from  action ;  and 
youth  measures  the  height  of  what  a  man  knows 
by  the  depth  of  his  power  to  do.4  There  is  a  better 
gospel  in  the  boy  on  the  field  than  in  the  man  in 
the  pulpit. 

Which  of  the  boys  whom  we  know  do  we  love 
best  in  our  secret  hearts  —  the  prayerful  Aloysius, 
or  the  masterful   leader  of  the  urchins  in  the 

»  W.  P.,  255,  258,  710,  462,  392,  305. 
*  Antich.,  §  2.  >  W.  P.,  918.  *  T.  0.  S.,  p.  76. 

L 


146      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

street?  We  moralize  and  sermonize  in  mean  ef- 
forts to  bring  the  young  tyrant  down  to  our 
virtuous  ansemia ;  but  we  know  that  we  are  wrong, 
and  respect  him  most  when  he  stands  his  ground 
most  firmly.  To  require  of  strength  that  it  should 
express  itself  as  weakness  is  just  as  absurd  as  to 
require  of  weakness  that  it  should  express  itself 
as  strength.1  Let  us  go  to  school  to  our  children, 
and  we  shall  understand  that  all  native  propensities 
are  beneficent,  that  the  evil  impulses  are  to  a  far 
view  as  necessary  and  preservative  as  the  good.2 
In  truth  we  worship  youth  because  at  its  finest  it 
is  a  free  discharge  of  instinctive  strength ;  and  we 
know  that  happiness  is  nothing  else  than  that. 
To  abandon  instinct,  to  deliberate,  to  clog  action 
with  conscious  thought,  —  that  is  to  achieve  old 
age.  After  all,  nothing  can  be  done  perfectly  so 
long  as  it  is  done  consciously ;  consciousness  is  a 
defect  to  be  overcome.3  Instinct  is  the  most  in- 
telligent of  all  kinds  of  intelligence  which  have 
hitherto  been  discovered.4  Genius  lies  in  the 
instincts ;  goodness  too ;  all  consciousness  is 
theatricality.6  When  a  people  begins  to  worship 
reason,  it  begins  to  die.6  Youth  knows  better: 
it  follows  instinct  trustfully,  and  worships  power. 
And  we  worship  power  too,  and  should  say  so 
were  we  as  honest  as  our  children.  Our  gentlest 
virtues  are  but  forms  of  power :   out  of  the  abun- 

1  G.  M.,  p.  45.  *  J.  W.,  §  4. 

3  Antich.,  §  14.  <  B.  G.  E.,  p.  162. 

«  W.  P.,  440,  289.  «  E.  H.,  p.  10. 


NIETZSCHE  147 

dance  of  the  power  of  sex  come  kindness  and  pity ; 
out  of  revenge,  justice;  out  of  the  love  of  re- 
sistance, bravery.  Love  is  a  secret  path  to  the 
heart  of  the  powerful,  in  order  to  become  his  mas- 
ter ;  gratitude  is  revenge  of  a  lofty  kind ;  self- 
sacrifice  is  an  attempt  to  share  in  the  power  of 
him  to  whom  the  sacrifice  is  made.  Honor  is 
the  acknowledgment  of  an  equal  power;  praise 
is  the  pride  of  the  judge ;  all  conferring  of  bene- 
fits is  an  exercise  of  power.1  Behold  a  man  in  dis- 
tress :  straightway  the  compassionate  ones  come 
to  him,  depict  his  misfortune  to  him,  at  last  go 
away,  satisfied  and  elevated ;  they  have  gloated 
over  the  unhappy  man's  misfortune  and  their 
own ;  they  have  spent  a  pleasant  Sunday  after- 
noon.2 So  with  the  scientist  and  the  philosopher  : 
in  their  thirst  for  knowledge  lurks  the  lust  of  gain 
and  conquest.  And  the  cry  of  the  oppressed  for 
freedom  is  again  a  cry  for  power.3 

You  cannot  understand  man,  you  cannot  under- 
stand society,  until  you  learn  to  see  in  all  things 
this  will  to  power.  Physiologists  should  bethink 
themselves  before  putting  down  the  instinct  of 
self-preservation  as  the  cardinal  instinct  of  an 
organic  being.  A  living  thing  seeks  above  all  to 
discharge  its  strength :  self-preservation  is  only 
one  of  the  results  of  this.  And  psychologists 
should  think  twice  before  saying  that  happiness 
or  pleasure  is  the  motive  of  all  action.     Pleasure  is 

i  W.  P.,  255,  774,  775;  D.  D.,  §  215;  J.  W.,  13. 
*  D.  D.,  §  224.  3  w.  P.,  376,  776. 


148      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

but  an  incident  of  the  restless  search  for  power ; 
happiness  is  an  accompanying,  not  an  actuating, 
factor.  The  feeling  of  happiness  lies  precisely  in 
the  discontentedness  of  the  will,  in  the  fact  that 
without  opponents  and  obstacles  it  is  never  satis- 
fied. Man  is  now  master  of  the  forces  of  nature, 
and  master  too  of  his  own  wild  and  unbridled  feel- 
ings ;  in  comparison  with  primitive  man  the  man 
of  to-day  represents  an  enormous  quantum  of 
power,  but  not  an  increase  of  happiness.  How  can 
one  maintain,  then,  that  man  has  striven  after 
happiness  ?  No ;  not  happiness,  but  more  power ; 
not  peace  at  any  price,  but  war;  not  virtue,  but 
capacity ;  that  is  the  secret  of  man's  longing  and 
man's  seeking.1 

Let  biologists,  too,  reexamine  the  stock-in- 
trade  of  their  theory.  Life  is  not  the  continuous 
adjustment  of  internal  to  external  relations,  but 
will  to  power,  which,  proceeding  from  within, 
subjugates  and  incorporates  an  ever-increasing 
quantity  of  "  external  phenomena."  All  motive 
force,  all  "causation"  whatever,  is  this  will  to 
power ;  there  is  no  other  force,  physical,  dynam- 
ical, or  psychical.2  As  to  the  famous  "struggle 
for  existence,"  it  seems  at  present  to  be  more  of  an 
assumption  than  a  fact.  It  does  occur,  but  as  an 
exception ;  and  it  is  due  not  to  a  desire  for  food 
but  a  tergo  to  a  surcharge  of  energy  demanding 
discharge.     The  general  condition  of  life  is  not 

1  W.  P.,  650,  657,  685,  696,  704 ;    Antich.,  §  2. 
*  Ibid.,  681,  688,  689. 


NIETZSCHE  149 

one  of  want  or  famine,  but  rather  of  riches,  of 
lavish  luxuriance,  and  even  of  absurd  prodi- 
gality ;  where  there  is  a  struggle  it  is  a  struggle 
for  power.  We  must  not  confound  Malthus  with 
Nature.1  One  does  indeed  find  the  "cruelty  of 
Nature"  which  is  so  often  referred  to,  but  in  a 
different  place :  Nature  is  cruel,  but  against  her 
lucky  and  well-constituted  children ;  she  protects 
and  shelters  and  loves  the  lowly.  Darwin  sees 
selection  in  favor  of  the  stronger,  the  better- 
constituted.  Precisely  the  reverse  stares  one  in 
the  face :  the  suppression  of  the  lucky  cases,  the 
reversion  to  average,  the  uselessness  of  the  more 
highly  constituted  types,  the  inevitable  mastery 
of  the  mediocre.  If  we  drew  our  morals  from 
reality,  they  would  read  thus :  the  mediocre  are 
more  valuable  than  the  exceptional  creatures ; 
the  will  to  nonentity  prevails  over  the  will  to  life. 
We  have  to  beware  of  this  formulation  of  reality 
into  a  moral.2 

No ;  morality  is  not  mediocrity,  it  is  superior- 
ity ;  it  does  not  mean  being  like  most  people,  but 
being  better,  stronger,  more  capable  than  most 
people.  It  does  not  mean  timidity  :  if  anything 
is  virtue  it  is  to  stand  unafraid  in  the  presence  of 
any  prohibition.3  It  does  not  mean  the  pursuit 
of  ends  sanctified  by  society;  it  means  the  will 
to  your  own  ends,  and  to  the  means  to  them.  It 
means  behaving  as  states  behave,  —  with  frank 

1  T.  I.,  p.  71 ;   W.  P.,  649. 
*  W.  P.,685.  »  Z„  p.  398. 


150      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

abandonment  of  all  altruistic  pretence.  Cor- 
porate bodies  are  intended  to  do  that  which 
individuals  have  not  the  courage  to  do :  for  this 
reason  all  communities  are  vastly  more  upright 
and  instructive  as  regards  the  nature  of  man  than 
individuals,  who  are  too  cowardly  to  have  the 
courage  of  their  desires.  All  altruism  is  the  pru- 
dence of  the  private  man ;  societies  are  not 
mutually  altruistic.  Altruism  and  life  are  in- 
compatible :  all  the  forces  and  instincts  which  are 
the  source  of  life  lie  stagnant  beneath  the  ban  of 
the  old  morality.  But  real  morality  is  certainty 
of  instinct,  effectiveness  of  action ;  it  is  any  action 
which  increases  the  power  of  a  man  or  of  men ;  it  is 
an  expression  of  ascendent  and  expanding  life; 
it  is  achievement ;  it  is  power.1 

8 

The  Superman 

With  such  a  morality  you  breed  men  who  are 
men ;  and  to  breed  men  who  are  men  is  all  that 
your  "social  problem"  comes  to.  This  does  not 
mean  that  the  whole  race  is  to  be  improved :  the 
very  last  thing  a  sensible  man  would  promise  to 
accomplish  would  be  to  improve  mankind.  Man- 
kind does  not  improve,  it  does  not  even  exist. 
The  aspect  of  the  whole  is  much  more  like  that 
of  a  huge  experimenting  workshop  where  some 
things  in  all  ages  succeed,  while  an  incalculable 

«  W.  P.,  880,  716,  343,  423,  291. 


NIETZSCHE  151 

number  of  things  fail.  To  say  that  the  social 
problem  consists  in  a  general  raising  of  the  aver- 
age standard  of  comfort  and  ability  amounts  to 
abandoning  the  problem ;  there  is  as  little  pros- 
pect of  mankind's  attaining  to  a  higher  order  as 
there  is  for  the  ant  and  the  ear-wig  to  enter  into 
kinship  with  God  and  eternity.  The  most  fun- 
damental of  all  errors  here  lies  in  regarding  the 
many,  the  herd,  as  an  aim  instead  of  the  individual : 
the  herd  is  only  a  means.  The  road  to  perfection 
lies  in  the  bringing  forth  of  the  most  powerful 
individuals,  for  whose  use  the  great  masses  would 
be  converted  into  mere  tools,  into  the  most  intel- 
ligent and  flexible  tools  possible.  Every  human 
being,  with  his  total  activity,  has  dignity  and 
significance  only  so  far  as  he  is,  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  a  tool  in  the  service  of  a  superior 
individual.  All  that  can  be  done  is  to  produce 
here  and  there,  now  and  then,  such  a  superior 
individual,  Vuomo  singulare,  the  higher  man,  the 
superman.  The  problem  does  not  concern  what 
humanity  as  a  whole  or  as  a  species  is  to  accom- 
plish, but  what  kind  of  man  is  to  be  desired  as 
highest  in  value,  what  kind  of  man  is  to  be  worked 
for  and  bred.  To  produce  the  superman :  that 
is  the  social  problem.  If  this  is  not  understood, 
nothing  is  understood.1 

Now  what  would  such  a  man  be  like?     Shall 
we  try  to  picture  him? 

'  E.  H.,  p.  2 ;   D.  D.,  §  49 ;   Lonely  N.,  p.  17 ;    W.  P.,  269, 
90,  766,  660. 


152      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

We  see  him  as  above  all  a  lover  of  life :  strong 
enough,  too,  to  love  life  without  deceiving  himself 
about  it.  There  is  no  memento  mori  here ;  rather 
a  memento  vivere;  rich  instincts  call  for  much 
living.  A  hard  man,  loving  danger  and  difficulty  : 
what  does  not  kill  him,  he  feels,  leaves  him 
stronger.  Pleasure  —  pleasure  as  it  is  understood 
by  the  rich  —  is  repugnant  to  him  :  he  seeks  not 
pleasure  but  work,  not  happiness  but  responsi- 
bility and  achievement.  He  does  not  make 
philosophy  an  excuse  for  living  prudently  and 
apart,  an  artifice  for  withdrawing  successfully 
from  the  game  of  life ;  he  does  not  stand  aside 
and  merely  look  on ;  he  puts  his  shoulder  to  the 
wheel ;  for  him  it  is  the  essence  of  philosophy  to 
feel  the  obligation  and  burden  of  a  hundred 
attempts  and  temptations,  the  joy  of  a  hundred 
adventures ;  he  risks  himself  constantly ;  he 
plays  out  to  the  end  this  bad  game.1 

To  risk  and  to  create,  this  is  the  meaning  of  life 
to  the  superman.  He  could  not  bear  to  be  a  man, 
if  man  could  not  be  a  poet,  a  maker.  To  change 
every  "It  was"  into  a  "Thus  I  would  have  it !" 
—  in  this  he  finds  that  life  may  redeem  itself.  He 
is  moved  not  by  ambition  but  by  a  mighty  over- 
flowing spendthrift  spirit  that  drives  him  on ;  he 
must  remake ;  for  this  he  compels  all  things  to 
come  to  him  and  into  him,  in  order  that  they  may 
flow  back  from  him  as  gifts  of  his  love  and  his 

»  E.  H.,  p.  138 ;    T.  0.  S„  ii,  p.  66 ;    Z.,  p.  222 ;    W.  P., 
934,  944  ;   J.  W.,  p.  8  ;    T.  /.,  §  40 ;   B.  G.  E.,  p.  138. 


NIETZSCHE  153 

abundance ;  in  this  refashioning  of  things  by 
thought  he  sees  the  holiness  of  life ;  the  greatest 
events,  he  knows,  are  these  still  creative  hours.1 

He  is  a  man  of  contrasts,  or  contradictions ; 
he  does  not  desire  to  be  always  the  same  man ;  he 
is  a  multitude  of  elements  and  of  men ;  his  value 
lies  precisely  in  his  comprehensiveness  and  multi- 
fariousness, in  the  variety  of  burdens  which  he 
can  bear,  in  the  extent  to  which  he  can  stretch 
his  responsibility;  in  him  the  antagonistic  char- 
acter of  existence  is  represented  and  justified.  He 
loves  instinct,  knows  that  it  is  the  fountain  of  all 
his  energies ;  but  he  knows,  too,  the  natural  delight 
of  aesthetic  natures  in  measure,  the  pleasure  of 
self-restraint,  the  exhilaration  of  the  rider  on  a 
fiery  steed.  He  is  a  selective  principle,  he  rejects 
much ;  he  reacts  slowly  to  all  kinds  of  stimuli, 
with  that  tardiness  which  long  caution  and  de- 
liberate pride  have  bred  in  him ;  he  tests  the 
approaching  stimulus.  He  decides  slowly ;  but 
he  holds  firmly  to  a  decision  made.2 

He  loves  and  has  the  qualities  which  the  folk 
call  virtues,  but  he  loves  too  and  shows  the  quali- 
ties which  the  folk  call  vices ;  it  is  again  in  this 
union  of  opposites  that  he  rises  above  mediocrity ; 
he  is  a  broad  arch  that  spans  two  banks  lying 
far  apart.  The  folk  on  either  side  fear  him ;  for 
they  cannot  calculate  on  him,  or  classify  him. 

1  Z.,  pp.  199,  103,  186  ;    W.  P.,  792. 

»  W.  P.,  881,  870,  918;    B.  O.  E.,  p.  154;    E.  H„  p.  13; 
D.  D.,  §  552. 


154      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

He  is  a  free  spirit,  an  enemy  of  all  fetters  and 
labels ;  he  belongs  to  no  party,  knowing  that  the 
man  who  belongs  to  a  party  perforce  becomes  a 
liar.  He  is  a  sceptic  (not  that  he  must  appear  to 
be  one) ;  freedom  from  any  kind  of  conviction  is  a 
necessary  factor  in  his  strength  of  will.  He  does 
not  make  propaganda  or  proselytes ;  he  keeps  his 
ideals  to  himself  as  distinctions ;  his  opinion  is 
his  opinion  :  another  person  has  not  easily  a  right 
to  it ;  he  has  renounced  the  bad  taste  of  wishing 
to  agree  with  many  people.  He  knows  that  he 
cannot  reveal  himself  to  anybody  ;  like  everything 
profound,  he  loves  the  mask  ;  he  does  not  descend 
to  familiarity ;  and  is  not  familiar  when  people 
think  he  is.  If  he  cannot  lead,  he  walks  alone.1 
He  has  not  only  intellect ;  if  that  were  all  it 
would  not  be  enough ;  he  has  blood.  Behind 
him  is  a  lineage  of  culture  and  ability ;  lives  of 
danger  and  distinction ;  his  ancestors  have  paid 
the  price  for  what  he  is,  just  as  most  men  pay  the 
price  for  what  their  ancestors  have  been.  Natu- 
rally, then,  he  has  a  strong  feeling  of  distance ;  he 
sees  inequality  and  gradation,  order  and  rank, 
everywhere  among  men.  He  has  the  most 
aristocratic  of  virtues :  intellectual  honesty. 
He  does  not  readily  become  a  friend  or  an  enemy ; 
he  honors  only  his  equals,  and  therefore  cannot 
be  the  enemy  of  many ;  where  one  despises  one 
cannot  wage  war.     He  lacks  the  power  of  easy 

lW.  P.,  967,    366-7,   349;    Z„   p.    141;    Antich.,   §    65; 
B.  G.  E„  pp.  64,  57. 


NIETZSCHE  155 

reconciliation;  but  "retaliation"  is  as  incompre- 
hensible to  him  as  "equal  rights."  He  remains 
just  even  as  regards  his  injurer  ;  despite  the  strong 
provocation  of  personal  insult  the  clear  and  lofty 
objectivity  of  the  just  and  judging  eye  (whose 
glance  is  as  profound  as  it  is  gentle)  is  untroubled. 
He  recognizes  duties  only  to  his  equals  ;  to  others 
he  does  what  he  thinks  best ;  he  knows  that  jus- 
tice is  found  only  among  equals.  He  has  that 
distinctively  aristocratic  trait,  the  ability  to 
command  and  with  equal  readiness  to  obey  ;  that 
is  indispensable  to  his  pride.  He  will  not  permit 
himself  to  be  praised ;  he  does  what  serves  his 
purpose.  The  essence  of  him  is  that  he  has  a 
purpose,  for  which  he  will  not  hesitate  to  run  all 
risks,  even  to  sacrifice  men,  to  bend  their  backs 
to  the  worst.  That  something  may  exist  which 
is  a  hundred  times  more  important  than  the  ques- 
tion whether  he  feels  well  or  unwell,  and  therefore 
too  whether  the  others  feel  well  or  unwell :  this 
is  a  fundamental  instinct  of  his  nature.  To  have 
a  purpose,  and  to  cleave  to  it  through  all  dangers 
till  it  be  achieved,  —  that  is  his  great  passion, 
that  is  himself.1 

9 

How  to  Make  Supermen 

It  is  our  task,  then,  to  procreate  this  synthetic 
man,  who  embodies  everything  and  justifies  it, 

»  W.  P.,  969,  371,  356,  926,  946,  26;    Z.,  p.  430;    E.  H., 
pp.  23,  19,  128 ;    G.  M.,  p.  85  ;   D.  D„  §  60. 


156      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

and  for  whom  the  rest  of  mankind  is  but  soil ; 
to  bring  the  philosopher,  the  artist,  and  the  saint, 
within  and  without  us,  to  the  light,  and  to  strive 
thereby  for  the  completion  of  nature.  In  this 
cultivation  lies  the  meaning  of  culture  :  the  direc- 
tion of  all  life  to  the  end  of  producing  the  finest 
possible  individuals.  What  is  great  in  man  is 
that  he  is  a  bridge  and  not  a  goal ;  his  very  essence 
is  to  create  a  being  higher  than  himself  ;  that  is  the 
instinct  of  procreation,  the  instinct  of  action  and 
of  work.  Even  the  higher  man  himself  feels  this 
need  of  begetting ;  and  for  lesser  men  all  virtue 
and  morals  lie  in  preparing  the  way  that  the  super- 
man may  come.  There  is  no  greater  horror  than 
the  degenerating  soul  which  says,  "All  for  my- 
self." In  this  great  purpose,  too,  is  the  essence  of 
a  better  religion,  and  a  surpassing  of  the  bounds 
of  narrow  individualism  ;  with  this  purpose  there 
come  moments,  sparks  from  the  clear  fire  of  love,  in 
whose  light  we  understand  the  word  "  I "  no  longer ; 
we  feel  that  we  are  creating,  and  therefore  in  a 
sense  becoming,  something  greater  than  ourselves.1 

How  to  make  straight  the  way  for  the  superman  ? 

First  by  reforming  marriage.  Let  it  be  under- 
stood at  once  that  love  is  a  hindrance  rather  than 
a  help  to  such  marriages  as  are  calculated  to  breed 
higher  men.  To  regard  a  thing  as  beautiful  is 
necessarily  to  regard  it  falsely ;  that  is  why  love- 
marriages  are  from  the  social  point  of  view  the 

>  W.  P.,  866 ;  T.  0.  S.,  ii,  p.  154 ;  Z.,  pp.  8,  104 ;  T.  I., 
p.  269. 


NIETZSCHE  157 

most  unreasonable  form  of  matrimony.  Were 
there  a  benevolent  God,  the  marriages  of  men 
would  cause  him  more  displeasure  than  anything 
else ;  he  would  observe  that  all  buyers  are  careful, 
but  that  even  the  most  cunning  one  buys  his  wife 
in  a  sack ;  and  surely  he  would  cause  the  earth  to 
tremble  in  convulsions  when  a  saint  and  a  goose 
couple.  When  a  man  is  in  love,  he  should  not  be 
allowed  to  come  to  a  decision  about  his  life,  and 
to  determine  once  for  all  the  character  of  his 
lifelong  society  on  account  of  a  whim.  If  we 
treated  marriage  seriously,  we  would  publicly 
declare  invalid  the  vows  of  lovers,  and  refuse 
them  permission  to  marry.  We  would  remake 
public  opinion,  so  that  it  would  encourage  trial 
marriage ;  we  would  exact  certificates  of  health 
and  good  ancestry ;  we  would  punish  bachelor- 
hood by  longer  military  service,  and  would  reward 
with  all  sorts  of  privileges  those  fathers  who 
should  lavish  sons  upon  the  world.  And  above 
all  we  would  make  people  understand  that  the 
purpose  of  marriage  is  not  that  they  should 
duplicate,  but  that  they  should  surpass,  them- 
selves. Perhaps  we  would  read  to  them  from 
Zarathustra,  with  fitting  ceremonies  and  solemni- 
ties :  "Thou  art  young,  and  wishest  for  child  and 
marriage.  But  I  ask  thee,  art  thou  a  man  who 
dareth  to  wish  for  a  child  ?  Art  thou  the  victori- 
ous one,  the  self-subduer,  the  commander  of  thy 
senses,  the  master  of  thy  virtues  ?  —  or  in  thy 
wish  doth  there  speak  the  animal,  or  necessity? 


158      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

Or  solitude?  Or  discord  with  thyself?  I  would 
that  thy  victory  and  freedom  were  longing  for  a 
child.  Thou  shalt  build  living  monuments  unto 
thy  victory  and  thy  liberation.  Thou  shalt 
build  beyond  thyself.  But  first  thou  must  build 
thyself  square  in  body  and  soul.  Thou  shalt  not 
only  propagate  thyself,  but  propagate  thyself 
upward  !  Marriage :  thus  I  call  the  will  of  two 
to  create  that  one  which  is  more  than  they  who 
created  it.  I  call  marriage  reverence  unto  each 
other  as  unto  those  who  will  such  a  will."  l 

In  a  word,  eugenic  marriage  ;  and  after  eugenic 
marriage,  rigorous  education.  But  interest  in 
education  will  become  powerful  only  when  belief 
in  a  God  and  his  care  have  been  abandoned,  just 
as  medicine  began  to  flourish  only  when  the  belief 
in  miraculous  cures  had  lapsed.  When  men  begin 
at  last  to  believe  in  education,  they  will  endure 
much  rather  than  have  their  sons  miss  going  to  a 
good  and  hard  school  at  the  proper  time.  What  is 
it  that  one  learns  in  a  hard  school  ?  To  obey  and 
to  command.  For  this  is  what  distinguishes  hard 
schooling,  as  good  schooling,  from  every  other 
schooling,  namely  that  a  good  deal  is  demanded, 
severely  exacted ;  that  excellence  is  required  as 
if  it  were  normal ;  that  praise  is  scanty,  that 
leniency  is  non-existent ;  that  blame  is  sharp, 
practical,  and  without  reprieve,  and  has  no  regard 
to  talent  and  antecedents.  To  prefer  danger  to 
comfort ;  not  to  weigh  in  a  tradesman's  balance 
1  W.  P.,  804,  732-3 ;   Z.,  pp.  94-6 ;   D.  D„  §  150-1. 


NIETZSCHE  159 

what  is  permitted  and  what  is  forbidden ;  to  be 
more  hostile  to  pettiness,  slyness,  and  parasitism 
than  to  wickedness ;  —  we  are  in  every  need  of  a 
school  where  these  things  would  be  taught.  Such 
a  school  would  allow  its  pupils  to  learn  produc- 
tively, by  living  and  doing ;  it  would  not  subject 
them  to  the  tyranny  of  books  and  the  weight  of 
the  past ;  it  would  teach  them  less  about  the  past 
and  more  about  the  future ;  it  would  teach  them 
the  future  of  humanity  as  depending  on  human 
will,  on  their  will;  it  would  prepare  the  way  for 
and  be  a  part  of  a  vast  enterprise  in  breeding 
and  education.1  But  even  such  a  school  would 
not  provide  all  that  is  necessary  in  education. 
Not  all  should  receive  the  same  training  and  the 
same  care ;  select  groups  must  be  chosen,  and 
special  instruction  lavished  on  them  ;  the  greatest 
success,  however,  will  remain  for  the  man  who 
does  not  seek  to  educate  either  everybody  or 
certain  limited  circles,  but  only  one  single  indi- 
vidual. The  last  century  was  superior  to  ours 
precisely  because  it  possessed  so  many  individually 
educated  men. 

10 

On  the  Necessity  of  Exploitation 

And  next  slavery. 

This  is  one  of  those  ugly  words  which  are  the 
verba  non  grata  of  modern  discussion,  because  they 

'  H.  H.,  §  242  ;  W.  P.,  912  ;  B.  G.  E.,  p.  129  ;  D.  D.,  §  194 ; 

"Schopenhauer  as  Educator"  (in  T.  0.  8.),  passim. 


160      PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    PROBLEM 

jar  us  so  ruthlessly  out  of  the  grooves  of  our  think- 
ing. Nevertheless  it  is  clear  to  all  but  those  to 
whom  self-deception  is  the  staff  of  life,  that  as  the 
honest  Greeks  had  it,  some  are  born  to  be  slaves. 
Try  to  educate  all  men  equally,  and  you  become 
the  laughing-stock  of  your  own  maturity.  The 
masses  seem  to  be  worth  notice  in  three  aspects 
only :  first  as  the  copies  of  great  men,  printed  on 
bad  paper  from  worn-out  plates ;  next  as  a  con- 
trast to  the  great  men ;  and  lastly  as  their  tools. 
Living  consists  in  living  at  the  cost  of  others  :  the 
man  who  has  not  grasped  this  fact  has  not  taken 
the  first  step  towards  truth  to  himself.  And  to 
consider  distress  of  all  kinds  as  an  objection,  as 
something  which  must  be  done  away  with,  is  the 
greatest  nonsense  on  earth ;  almost  as  mad  as 
the  will  to  abolish  bad  weather,  out  of  pity  to 
the  poor,  so  to  speak.  The  masses  must  be  used, 
whether  that  means  or  does  not  mean  that  they 
must  suffer ;  —  it  requires  great  strength  to  live 
and  forget  how  far  life  and  injustice  are  one. 
What  is  the  suffering  of  whole  peoples  compared 
to  the  creative  agonies  of  great  individuals?  1 

There  are  many  who  threw  away  everything 
they  were  worth  when  they  threw  away  their 
slavery.  In  all  respects  slaves  live  more  securely 
and  more  happily  than  modern  laborers;  the 
laborer  chooses  his  harder  lot  to  satisfy  the  vanity 
of  telling  himself  that  he  is  not  a  slave.  These 
men  are  dangerous ;  not  because  they  are  strong, 

1  T.  O.  S.,  ii,  pp.  84,  28 ;    W.  P.,  369,  965  ;   E.  H.,  p.  135. 


NIETZSCHE  161 

but  because  they  are  sick ;  it  is  the  sick  who  are 
the  greatest  danger  to  the  healthy ;  it  is  the  weak 
ones,  they  who  mouth  so  much  about  their  sick- 
ness, who  vomit  bile  and  call  it  newspaper,  —  it 
is  they  who  instil  the  most  dangerous  venom  and 
scepticism  into  our  trust  in  life,  in  man,  and  in 
ourselves ;  it  is  they  who  most  undermine  the  life 
beneath  our  feet.  It  is  for  such  as  these  that 
Christianity  may  serve  a  good  purpose  (so  serv- 
ing our  purpose  too).  Those  qualities  which  are 
within  the  grasp  only  of  the  strongest  and  most 
terrible  natures,  and  which  make  their  existence 
possible  —  leisure,  adventure,  disbelief,  and  even 
dissipation  —  would  necessarily  ruin  mediocre 
natures  —  and  does  do  so  when  they  possess  them. 
In  the  case  of  the  latter,  industry,  regularity, 
moderation,  and  strong  "conviction"  are  in  their 
proper  place  —  in  short,  all  "gregarious  virtues"  ; 
under  their  influence  the.se  mediocre  men  become 
perfect.  We  good  Europeans,  then,  though 
atheists  and  immoralists,  will  take  care  to  support 
the  religions  and  the  morality  which  are  associated 
with  the  gregarious  instinct ;  for  by  means  of  them 
an  order  of  men  is,  so  to  speak,  prepared,  which 
must  at  some  time  or  other  fall  into  our  hands, 
which  must  actually  crave  for  our  hands.1 

Slavery,  let  us  understand  it  well,  is  the  neces- 
sary price  of  culture  ;  the  free  w(ork,  or  art,  of  some 
involves  the  compulsory  labor  of  others.     As  in 

1  Z.,  pp.  84,  64 ;    H.  H.,  §  457 ;    G.  M.,  156-7 ;  B.  G.  E., 
§§  61-2;    W.  P.,  373,  901,  132. 
II 


162      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

the  organism  so  in  society :  the  higher  function 
is  possible  only  through  the  subjection  of  the 
lower  functions.  A  high  civilization  is  a  pyra- 
mid ;  it  can  stand  only  on  a  broad  base,  its  first 
prerequisite  is  a  strongly  and  soundly  consoli- 
dated mediocrity.  In  order  that  there  may  be  a 
broad,  deep,  and  fruitful  soil  for  the  development 
of  art,  the  enormous  majority  must,  in  the  service 
of  a  minority,  be  slavishly  subjected.  At  their 
cost,  through  the  surplus  of  their  labor,  that 
privileged  class  is  to  be  relieved  from  the  struggle 
for  existence,  in  order  to  create  and  to  satisfy  a 
new  world  of  want.  The  misery  of  the  toilers 
must  still  increase  in  order  to  make  the  production 
of  a  world  of  art  possible  to  a  small  number  of 
Olympian  men.1 

11 

Aristocracy 

The  greatest  folly  of  the  strong  is  to  let  the 
weak  make  them  ashamed  to  exploit,  to  let  the 
weak  suggest  to  them,  "It  is  a  shame  to  be  happy 
—  there  is  too  much  misery  !"  Let  us  therefore 
reaffirm  the  right  of  the  happy  to  existence,  the 
right  of  bells  with  a  full  tone  over  bells  that  are 
cracked  and  discordant.  Not  that  exploitation 
as  such  is  desirable ;  it  is  good  only  where  it  sup- 
ports and  develops  an  aristocracy  of  higher  men 

»  H.  H.,  §  439 ;     W.  P.,  660 ;    Antich.,  §  57 ;    Lonely  N., 
p.  7. 


NIETZSCHE  163 

who  are  themselves  developing  still  higher  men. 
This  philosophy  aims  not  at  an  individualistic 
morality  but  at  a  new  order  of  rank.  In  this  age 
of  universal  suffrage,  in  this  age  in  which  every- 
body is  allowed  to  sit  in  judgment  upon  every- 
thing and  everybody,  one  feels  compelled  to  re- 
establish the  order  of  rank.  The  higher  men  must 
be  protected  from  contamination  and  suffocation 
by  the  lower.  The  richest  and  most  complex 
forms  perish  so  easily !  Only  the  lowest  suc- 
ceed in  maintaining  their  apparent  imperish- 
ableness.1 

The  first  question  as  to  the  order  of  rank  :  how 
far  is  a  man  disposed  to  be  solitary  or  gregarious  ? 
If  he  is  disposed  to  be  gregarious,  his  value  consists 
in  those  qualities  which  secure  the  survival  of  his 
tribe  or  type ;  if  he  is  disposed  to  be  solitary,  his 
qualities  are  those  which  distinguish  him  from 
others ;  hence  the  important  consequence :  the 
solitary  type  should  not  be  valued  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  gregarious  type,  or  vice  versa.  Viewed 
from  above,  both  types  are  necessary ;  and  so  is 
their  antagonism.  Degeneration  lies  in  the  ap- 
proximation of  the  qualities  of  the  herd  to  those  of 
the  solitary  creature,  and  vice  versa;  in  short,  in 
their  beginning  to  resemble  each  other.  Hence 
the  difference  in  their  virtues,  their  rights  and  their 
obligations ;  in  the  light  of  this  difference  one  comes 
to  abhor  the  vulgarity  of  Stuart  Mill  when  he 
says,  "What  is  right  for  one  man  is  right  for  an- 

•  G.  M.,  pp.  160-1 ;    W.  P.,  287,  854,  864. 


164      PHILOSOPHY   AND    THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

other."  It  is  not ;  what  is  right  for  the  herd  is 
precisely  what  is  wrong  for  their  leaders;  and 
what  is  right  for  the  leaders  is  wrong  for  the  herd. 
The  leaders  use,  the  herd  is  used ;  the  virtues  of 
either  lie  in  the  efficiency  here  of  leadership, 
there  of  service.  Slave-morality  is  one  thing,  and 
master-morality  another.1 

And  leadership  of  course  requires  an  aristoc- 
racy. Let  us  repeat  it :  democracy  has  always 
been  the  death-agony  of  the  power  of  organization 
and  direction ;  these  require  great  aristocratic 
families,  with  long  traditions  of  administration 
and  leadership  ;  old  ancestral  lines  that  guarantee 
for  many  generations  the  duration  of  the  necessary 
will  and  the  necessary  instincts.  Not  only  aristoc- 
racy, then,  but  caste ;  for  if  a  man  have  plebeian 
ancestors,  his  soul  will  be  a  plebeian  soul ;  educa- 
tion, discipline,  culture  will  be  wasted  on  him, 
merely  enabling  him  to  become  a  great  liar. 
Therefore  intermarriage,  even  social  intercourse 
of  leaders  with  herd,  is  to  be  avoided  with  all 
precaution  and  intolerance ;  too  much  intercourse 
with  barbarians  ruined  the  Romans,  and  will  ruin 
any  noble  race.2 

In  what  direction  may  one  turn  with  any  hope 
of  finding  even  the  aspiration  for  such  an  aristoc- 
racy ?  Only  there  where  a  noble  attitude  of  mind 
prevails,  an  attitude  of  mind  which  believes  in 

i  W.  P.,  886,  926. 

*  T.  I.,  p.  96 ;    W.  P.,  957 ;  B.  G.  E.,  p.  239 ;   T.  O.  S.,  u, 

p.  39. 


NIETZSCHE  165 

slavery  and  in  manifold  orders  of  rank,  as  the 
prerequisites  of  any  higher  degree  of  culture. 
Men  with  this  attitude  of  mind  will  insistently 
call  for,  and  will  at  last  produce,  philosophical 
men  of  power,  artist-tyrants,  —  a  higher  kind  of 
men  which,  thanks  to  their  preponderance  of  will, 
knowledge,  riches,  and  influence,  will  avail  them- 
selves of  democratic  Europe  as  the  most  suitable 
and  subtle  instrument  for  taking  the  fate  of 
Europe  into  their  hands,  and  working  as  artists 
upon  man  himself.  The  fundamental  belief  of 
these  great  desirers  will  be  that  society  must  not 
be  allowed  to  exist  for  its  own  sake,  but  only  as 
the  foundation  and  scaffolding  by  means  of  which 
a  select  class  of  beings  may  be  able  to  elevate 
themselves  to  their  highest  duties,  and  in  general 
to  a  higher  existence :  like  those  sun-climbing 
plants  in  Java  which  encircle  an  oak  so  long  and 
so  often  with  their  arms  that  at  last,  high  above 
it,  but  supported  by  it,  they  can  unfold  their  tops 
in  the  open  light,  and  exhibit  their  happiness.1 

12 

Signs  of  Ascent 

Are  we  moving  toward  such  a  consummation? 
Can  we  detect  about  us  any  signs  of  this  ascending 
movement  of  life  ?  Not  signs  of  "  progress  "  ;  that 
is  another  narcotic,  like  Christianity,  —  good  for 
slaves,  but  to  be  avoided  by  those  who  rule.     Man 

«  W.  P.,  464,  960 ;  B.  O.  E.,  p.  225. 


166      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

as  a  species  is  not  progressing ;  the  general  level  of 
the  species  is  not  raised.  But  humanity  as  mass 
sacrificed  to  the  prosperity]of  the  one  stronger  type 
of  Man,  —  that  would  be  a  progress.1 

Progress  of  this  kind,  to  some  degree,  there  has 
always  been.  The  ruling  class  in  Greece,  as  seen 
in  Homer  and  even  in  Thucydides  (though  with 
Socrates  degeneration  begins),  is  an  example  of 
this  kind  of  progress  or  attainment.  Imagine 
this  culture,  which  has  its  poet  in  Sophocles,  its 
statesman  in  Pericles,  its  physician  in  Hippoc- 
rates, its  natural  philosopher  in  Democritus; 
here  is  a  yea-saying,  a  gratitude,  to  life  in  all  its 
manifestations;  here  life  is  understood,  and 
covered  with  art  that  it  may  be  borne ;  here  men 
are  frivolous  so  that  they  may  forget  for  a  moment 
the  arduousness  and  perilousness  of  their  task; 
they  are  superficial,  but  from  profundity;  they 
exalt  philosophers  who  preach  moderation,  be- 
cause they  themselves  are  so  immoderate,  so 
instinctive,  so  hilariously  wild;  they  are  great, 
they  are  elevated  above  any  ruling  class  before  or 
after  them  because  here  the  morals  of  the  govern- 
ing caste  have  grown  up  among  the  governing 
caste,  and  not  among  the  herd.2 

We  catch  some  of  the  glory  of  these  Greeks  in 
the  men  of  the  Renaissance :  men  perfect  in  their 
immorality,  terrible  in  their  demands ;  we  should 

i  W.  P.,  44,  684,  909 ;  G.  M„  p.  91. 

>  D.  D.,  §§  165,  168 ;  W.  P.,  1052 ;  B.  G.  E.,  p.  69;  /.  W., 
p.  10. 


NIETZSCHE  167 

not  dare  to  stand  amid  the  conditions  which 
produced  these  men  and  which  these  men  pro- 
duced ;  we  should  not  even  dare  to  imagine  our- 
selves in  those  conditions :  our  nerves  would  not 
endure  that  reality,  —  not  to  speak  of  our  muscles. 
One  man  of  their  type,  continuator  and  develop- 
ment of  their  type,  brother  (as  Taine  most  rightly 
says)  of  Dante  and  Michelangelo,  —  one  such 
man  we  have  known  with  less  of  the  protection 
of  distance ;  and  he  was  too  hard  to  bear.  That 
Ens  Realissimum,  synthesis  of  monster  and  super- 
man, surnamed  Napoleon  !  The  first  man,  and  the 
man  of  greatest  initiative  and  developed  views,  of 
modern  times ;  a  man  of  tolerance,  not  out  of 
weakness,  but  out  of  strength,  able  to  risk  the  full 
enjoyment  of  naturalness  and  be  strong  enough 
for  this  freedom.  In  such  a  man  we  see  some- 
thing in  the  nature  of  "disinterestedness"  in  his 
work  on  his  marble,  whatever  be  the  number  of 
men  that  are  sacrificed  in  the  process.  Men  were 
glad  to  serve  him ;  as  most  normal  men  are  glad 
to  serve  the  great  man ;  the  crowd  was  tired  of 
"equal  rights,"  tired  of  being  masterless;  it 
longed  to  worship  genius  again.  What  was  the 
excuse  for  that  terrible  farce,  the  French  Revolu- 
tion?    It  made  men  ready  for  Napoleon.1 

When  shall  we  produce  another  superman? 
Let  us  go  back  to  our  question :  Can  we  detect 
about  us  any  signs  of  strength? 

1  T.  I.,  pp.  91,  110;    J.  W.,  §  362;    G.  M.,  pp.  56,  226; 
W.  P.,  975,  877 ;  B.  G.  E.,  pp.  201,  53. 


168      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE   SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

Yes.  We  are  learning  to  get  along  without 
God.  We  are  recovering  from  the  noble  senti- 
ments of  Rousseau.  We  are  giving  the  body  its 
due;  physiology  is  overcoming  theology.  We 
are  less  hungry  for  lies,  —  we  are  facing  squarely 
some  of  the  ugliness  of  life,  —  prostitution,  for 
example.  We  speak  less  of  "duty"  and  "princi- 
ples" ;  we  are  not  so  enamored  of  bourgeois  con- 
ventions. We  are  less  ashamed  of  our  instincts ; 
we  no  longer  believe  in  a  right  which  proceeds 
from  a  power  that  is  unable  to  uphold  it.  There 
is  an  advance  towards  "naturalness":  in  all 
political  questions,  even  in  the  relations  between 
parties,  even  in  merchants',  workmen's  circles 
only  questions  of  power  come  into  play;  what 
one  can  do  is  the  first  question,  what  one  ought  to 
do  is  a  secondary  consideration.  There  is  a  cer- 
tain degree  of  liberal-mindedness  regarding  moral- 
ity; where  this  is  most  distinctly  wanting  we 
regard  its  absence  as  a  sign  of  a  morbid  condi- 
tion (Carlyle,  Ibsen,  Schopenhauer) ;  if  there  is 
anything  which  can  reconcile  us  to  our  age  it  is 
precisely  the  amount  of  immorality  which  it  allows 
itself  without  falling  in  its  own  estimation.1 

Modern  science,  despite  its  narrowing  speciali- 
zation, is  a  sign  of  ascent.  Here  is  strictness  in 
service,  inexorability  in  small  matters  as  well  as 
great,  rapidity  in  weighing,  judging,  and  con- 
demning ;  the  hardest  is  demanded  here,  the  best 
is  done  without  reward  of  praise  or  distinction ;  it 

J  W.  P.,  109-34,  747. 


NIETZSCHE  169 

is  rather  as  among  soldiers,  —  almost  nothing  but 
blame  and  sharp  reprimand  is  heard;  for  doing 
well  prevails  here  as  the  rule,  and  the  rule  has,  as 
everywhere,  a  silent  tongue.  It  is  the  same  with 
this  "severity  of  science"  as  with  the  manners 
and  politeness  of  the  best  society  :  it  frightens  the 
uninitiated.  He,  however,  who  is  accustomed  to 
it,  does  not  like  to  live  anywhere  but  in  this 
clear,  transparent,  powerful,  and  highly  electri- 
fied atmosphere,  this  manly  atmosphere.1 

In  this  achievement  of  science  lies  such  an 
opportunity  as  philosophy  has  never  had  before. 
Science  traces  the  course  of  things  but  points  to 
no  goal :  what  it  does  give  consists  of  the  funda- 
mental facts  upon  which  the  new  goal  must  be 
based.  All  the  sciences  have  now  to  pave  the 
way  for  the  future  task  of  the  philosopher;  this 
task  being  understood  to  mean  that  he  must 
solve  the  problem  of  value,  that  he  has  to  fix  the 
hierarchy  of  values.  He  must  become  lawgiver, 
commander;  he  must  determine  the  "whither" 
and  "why"  for  mankind.  All  knowledge  must 
be  at  his  disposal,  and  must  serve  him  as  a  tool 
for  creation.2 

Most  certain  of  the  signs  of  a  reascending  move- 
ment of  life  is  the  development  of  militarism. 
The  military  development  of  Europe  is  a  delightful 
surprise.     This  fine  discipline  is  teaching  us  to  do 

1  J.  W.,  293. 

*  T.  I.,  p.  260 ;  O.  M.,  p.  58 ;  B.  O.  E„  p.  151 ;  Lonely  N., 
p.  221. 


170      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

our  duty  without  expecting  praise.  Universal 
military  service  is  the  curious  antidote  which  we 
possess  for  the  effeminacy  of  democratic  ideas. 
Men  are  learning  again  the  joy  of  living  in  danger. 
Some  of  them  are  even  learning  the  old  truth 
that  war  is  good  in  itself,  aside  from  any  gain  in 
land  or  other  wealth;  instead  of  saying  "A  good 
cause  will  hallow  every  war,"  they  learn  to  say 
"A  good  war  hallows  every  cause."  When  the 
instincts  of  a  society  ultimately  make  it  give  up 
war  and  conquest,  it  is  decadent :  it  is  ripe  for 
democracy  and  the  rule  of  shopkeepers.  A  state 
which  should  prevent  war  would  not  only  be  com- 
mitting suicide  (for  war  is  just  as  necessary  to  the 
state  as  the  slave  is  to  society) ;  it  would  be  hostile 
to  life,  it  would  be  an  outrage  on  the  future  of  man. 
The  maintenance  of  the  military  state  is  the  last 
means  of  adhering  to  the  great  traditions  of  the 
past ;  or  where  it  has  been  lost,  of  reviving  it. 
Only  in  this  can  the  superior  or  strong  type  of 
man  be  preserved.1 

A  nation  is  a  detour  of  nature  to  arrive  at  six 
or  seven  great  men,  and  then  to  get  around  them. 
The  state  is  the  organization  of  immorality  for 
the  attainment  of  this  purpose.  But  as  existing 
to-day  the  state  is  a  very  imperfect  instrument, 
subject  at  any  moment  to  democratic  foundering. 
What  concerns  the  thinker  here  is  the  slow  and 
hesitant   formation   of  a  united   Europe.     This 

1  W.  P.,  127,  728-9 ;     G.  M.,  pp.  88,  226 ;     J.  W„  283 ; 
Z.,  p.  60 ;   Lonely  N„  p.  15. 


NIETZSCHE  171 

was  the  thought,  and  the  sole  real  work  and 
impulse,  of  the  only  broad-minded  and  deep- 
thinking  men  of  this  century,  —  the  tentative  ef- 
fort to  anticipate  the  future  of  "the  European." 
Only  in  their  weaker  moments,  or  when  they  grew 
old,  did  they  fall  back  again  into  the  national 
narrowness  of  the  "  Fatherlanders "  —  then  they 
were  once  more  "patriots."  One  thinks  here  of 
men  like  Napoleon,  Heine,  Goethe,  Beethoven, 
Stendhal,  Schopenhauer.  And  after  all,  is  there 
a  single  idea  behind  this  bovine  nationalism? 
What  possible  value  can  there  be  in  encouraging 
this  arrogant  self-conceit  when  everything  to-day 
points  to  greater  and  more  common  interests  ?  — 
at  a  moment  when  the  spiritual  dependence  and 
denationalization  which  are  obvious  to  all  are 
paving  the  way  for  the  rapprochements  and 
fertilizations  which  make  up  the  real  value  and 
sense  of  present-day  culture?  l 

What  an  instrument  such  a  united  Europe 
would  be  for  the  development  and  protection 
and  expression  of  superior  individuals  !  What  a 
buoyant  ascent  of  life  after  this  long  descent  into 
democracy  !  See  now,  in  review,  the  two  move- 
ments which  we  have  studied  and  on  which  we 
have  [strung  our  philosophy :  on  the  one  hand 
Christian  mythology  and  morality,  the  cult  of 
weakness,  the  fear  of  life,  the  deterioration  of  the 
species,  ever  increasing  suppression  of  the  privi- 
leged and  the  strong,  the  lapse  into  democracy, 

»  B.  G.  E.,  p.  94 ;  W.  P.,  717,  748 ;  G.  M.,  pp.  223-4. 


172      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

feminism,  socialism,  and  at  last  into  anarchy,  — 
all  terminating  in  pessimism,  despair,  total  loss 
of  the  love  of  life  ;  on  the  other  hand  the  reaffir- 
mation of  the  worth  of  life,  the  resolute  distinction 
between  slave-morality  and  master-morality,  the 
recognition  of  the  aristocratic  valuation  of  health, 
vigor,  energy,  as  moral  in  all  their  forms,  and  of 
the  will  to  power  as  the  source  and  significance 
of  all  action  and  all  living ;  the  conception  of  the 
higher  man,  of  the  exceptional  individual,  as  the 
goal  of  human  endeavor ;  the  redirection  of  mar- 
riage, of  education,  of  social  structure,  to  the 
fostering  and  cherishing  of  these  higher  types ;  — 
culminating  in  the  supernational  organization  of 
Europe  as  the  instrumentality  and  artistic  expres- 
sion of  the  superior  man.1 

Is  this  philosophy  too  hard  to  bear?  Very 
well.  But  those  races  that  cannot  bear  it  are 
doomed ;  and  those  which  regard  it  as  the  greatest 
blessing  are  destined  to  be  masters  of  the  world.2 


IV 

Criticism 

What  shall  one  say  to  this?  What  would  a 
democrat  say,  —  such  a  democrat  as  would  be  a 
friend  to  socialism  and  feminism,  and  even  to 
anarchism,  —  and  a  lover  of  Jesus  ?  One  pictures 
such  a  man  listening  with  irritated  patience  to 

«  W.  P.,  712.  2  Ibid.,  1053. 


NIETZSCHE  173 

the  foregoing,  and  responding  very  readily  to  an 
invitation  to  take  the  floor. 

There  are  lessons  here,  he  begins,  as  if  brushing 
away  an  initial  encumbrance.  There  is  some- 
thing of  Nietzsche  in  all  of  us,  just  as. there  is 
something  of  Jesus  (almost  as  there  is  something 
of  man  and  of  woman  in  all  of  us,  as  Weininger 
argued) ;  and  part  of  that  crowd  called  myself 
is  flattered  by  this  doctrine  of  ruthless  power. 
Nietzsche  stood  outside  our  social  and  moral 
structure,  he  was  a  sort  of  hermit  in  the  world  of 
thought ;  and  so  he  could  see  things  in  that  struc- 
ture which  are  too  near  to  our  noses  for  easy  vision. 
And  as  you  listen  to  him  you  see  history  anew  as  a 
long  succession  of  masterings  and  enslavings  and 
deceivings,  and  you  become  almost  reconciled  to 
the  future  being  nothing  but  a  further  succession  of 
the  same.  And  then  you  begin  to  see  that  if  the 
future  is  to  be  different,  one  of  the  things  we  must  do 
is  to  pinch  ourselves  out  of  this  Nietzschean  dream. 

And  a  good  way  to  begin  is  with  Nietzsche's 
own  principle,  that  every  philosophy  is  a  physi- 
ology.1 He  asks  us  to  believe  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  a  morbid  trait  in  him,2  but  we  must  not 
take  him  at  his  word.  The  most  important  point 
about  this  philosophy  is  that  it  was  written  by  a 
sick  man,  a  man  sick  to  the  very  roots  —  if  you 
will  let  me  say  it,  abnormal  in  sexual  constitution  ; 
a  man  not  sufficiently  attracted  to  the  other  sex, 
i  J.  W.,  p.  5.  *  E.  H.,  p.  53. 


174      PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

because  he  has  so  much  of  the  other  sex  in  him. 
"She  is  a  woman,"  he  writes  in  Zarathustra, 
"and  never  loves  anyone  but  a  warrior";  that 
is,  if  Nietzsche  but  knew  it,  the  diagnosis  of 
his  own  disease.  This  hatred  of  women,  this 
longing  for  power,  this  admiration  for  strength, 
for  successful  lying,1  this  inability  to  see  a 
tertium  quid  between  tyranny  and  slavery,2  —  all 
these  are  feminine  traits.  A  stronger  man 
would  not  have  been  so  shrewishly  shrill  about 
woman  and  Christianity ;  a  stronger  man  would 
have  needed  less  repetition,  less  emphasis  and 
underlining,  less  of  italics  and  exclamation  points ; 
a  stronger  man  would  have  been  more  gentle,  and 
would  have  smiled  where  Nietzsche  scolds.  It  is 
the  philosophy,  you  see,  of  a  man  abnormally 
weak  in  the  social  instincts,  and  at  the  same  time 
lacking  in  proper  outlet  for  such  social  instincts 
as  nature  has  left  him. 

Consequently,  he  never  gets  beyond  the  individ- 
ual. He  thinks  society  is  made  up  of  individuals, 
when  it  is  really  made  up  of  groups.  He  supposes 
that  the  only  virtues  a  man  can  have  are  those 
which  help  him  as  an  isolated  unit ;  the  idea  that  a 
man  may  find  self-expression  in  social  expression, 
in  cooperation,  that  there  are  virtues  which  are 

1  W.  P.,  544,  with  footnote  quoting  Napoleon:  "An  al- 
most instinctive  belief  with  me  is  that  all  strong  men  lie  when 
they  speak,  and  much  more  so  when  they  write." 

2  "Far  too  long  a  slave  and  a  tyrant  have  been  hidden  in 
woman :  .  .  .  she  is  not  yet  capable  of  friendship."  —  Z„ 
p.  75. 


NIETZSCHE  175 

virtues  because  they  enable  one  to  work  with 
others  against  a  common  evil,  —  this  notion 
never  occurs  to  him.  He  does  not  see  that  sym- 
pathy and  mutual  aid,  for  example,  though  they 
preserve  some  inferior  individuals,  yet  secure  that 
group-solidarity,  and  therefore  group-survival, 
without  which  even  the  strong  ones  would  perish.1 
He  does  not  imagine  that  perhaps  the  barbarians 
who  invaded  Rome  needed  the  gospel  of  a  "gentle 
Jesus  meek  and  mild"  if  anything  at  all  was  to 
remain  of  that  same  classical  culture  which  he 
paints  so  lovingly.2  He  laughs  at  self-denial ; 
and  then  invites  you  to  devote  yourself  forever 
to  some  self-elected  superman. 

This  philosophy  of  aristocracy,  of  the  necessity 
of  slavery,  of  the  absurdity  of  democracy,  —  of 
course  it  is  exciting  to  all  weak  people  who  would 
like  to  have  power,  —  and  who  have  not  read  it 
all  before  in  Plato.  In  this  particular  case  the 
humor  of  the  situation  lies  in  the  very  powerful 
attack  which  Nietzsche  makes  on  the  irreligious 
religious  humbug  which  has  proved  one  of  the  chief 
instruments  of  mastery  in  the  hands  of  the  class 
whose  power  he  is  trying  to  strengthen.  "I  hope 
to  be  forgiven,"  says  Nietzsche,  "for  discovering 
that  all  moral  philosophy  hitherto  has  belonged 
to  the  soporific  appliances."  3     "Discovering"  — 

1  Hobhouse,  Social  Evolution  and  Political  Theory,  New 
York,  1911,  p.  25. 

*  There  is  something  verging  on  a  recognition  of  this  in 
W.  P.,  403-4. 

"  B.  G.  E.,  p.  173. 


176      PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    PROBLEM 

as  if  the  aristocracy  had  not  known  that  all  along  ! 
"Here  is  a  naive  bookworm,"  these  "strong  men" 
will  say  among  themselves,  "who  has  discovered 
what  every  one  of  us  knows.  He  presumes  to 
tell  us  how  to  increase  our  power,  and  he  can  find 
no  better  way  of  helping  us  than  to  expose  in 
print  the  best  secrets  of  our  trade." 

Just  in  this  lies  the  value  of  Nietzsche,  as 
Rousseau  said  of  Machiavelli :  he  lets  us  in 
behind  the  scenes  of  the  drama  of  exploitation. 
We  know  better  now  the  men  with  whom  democ- 
racy must  deal.  We  see  the  greed  for  power  that 
hides  behind  the  contention  that  culture  cannot 
exist  without  slavery.  Grant  that  contention  :  so 
much  the  worse  for  culture  !  If  culture  means 
the  increasing  concentration  of  the  satisfactions  of 
life  in  the  hands  of  a  few  "superior"  pigs,  their 
culture  may  be  dispensed  with ;  if  it  is  to  stay,  it 
will  have  to  mean  the  direction  of  knowledge  and 
ability  to  the  spread  of  the  satisfactions  of  life. 
Which  is  finer,  —  the  relationship  of  master  and 
slave,  or  that  of  friend  and  friend?  Surely  a 
world  of  people  liking  and  helping  one  another  is  a 
finer  world  to  live  in  than  one  in  which  the  instincts 
of  aggression  are  supreme.  And  such  a  coopera- 
tive civilization  need  not  fear  the  tests  of  survival ; 
selection  puts  an  ever  higher  premium  on  solidar- 
ity, an  ever  lower  value  on  pugnacity.  Intelli- 
gence, not  ready  anger,  will  win  the  great  contests 
of  the  future.     Friendship  will  pay. 

The  history  of  the  world  is  a  record  of  the 


NIETZSCHE  177 

patient  and  planful  attempt  to  replace  hatred  by- 
understanding,  narrowness  by  large  vision,  oppo- 
sition by  cooperation,  slavery  by  friendship. 
Friendship :  a  word  to  be  avoided  by  those  who 
would  appear  blase.  But  let  us  repeat  it ;  words 
have  been  known  to  nourish  deeds  which  without 
them  might  never  have  grown  into  reality.  Some 
find  heaven  in  making  as  many  men  as  possible 
their  slaves ;  others  find  heaven  in  making  as 
many  men  as  possible  their  friends.  Which  type 
of  man  will  we  have?  Which  type  of  man,  if 
abundant,  would  make  this  world  a  splendor  and 
a  delight? 

The  hope  for  which  Jesus  lived  was  that  man 
might  some  day  come  to  mean  friend.  It  is  the 
only  hope  worth  living  for. 


Nietzsche  Replies 

"It  is  certainly  not  the  least  charm  of  a  theory," 
says  Nietzsche,  "that  it  is  refutable."  l  But 
"what  have  I  to  do  with  mere  refutations?"2 
"A  prelude  I  am  of  better  players."3  "Verily, 
I  counsel  you,"  said  Zarathustra,  "depart  from 
me  and  defend  yourselves  against  Zarathustra  ! 
And  better  still,  be  ashamed  of  him.  Perhaps  he 
hath  deceived  you.  The  man  of  perception  must 
not  only  be  able  to  love  his  enemies,  but  also  to 
hate  his  friends.  One  ill  requiteth  one's  teacher 
1  B.  G.  E.,  p.  25.  ■  G.  M.,  p.  6.  « Z.,  p.  303. 

N 


178      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

by  always  remaining  only  his  scholar.  Why  will 
ye  not  pluck  at  my  wreath  ?  Ye  revere  me ;  but 
how  if  your  reverence  one  day  falleth  down? 
Beware  of  being  crushed  to  death  with  a  statue  ! 
Ye  say  ye  believe  in  Zarathustra?  But  what  is 
Zarathustra  worth  ?  Ye  are  my  faithful  ones ; 
but  what  are  all  faithful  ones  worth?  When  ye 
had  not  yet  sought  yourselves  ye  found  me. 
Thus  do  all  faithful  ones ;  hence  all  belief  is 
worth  so  little.  Now  I  ask  you  to  lose  me  and 
find  yourselves ;  not  until  all  of  you  have  dis- 
owned me  shall  I  return  unto  you."  l 

VI 

Conclusion 

"Look,"  says  Rudin,  in  Turgenev's  story, 
"you  see  that  apple  tree?  It  has  broken  down 
with  the  weight  and  multitude  of  its  own  fruit. 
It  is  the  emblem  of  genius."  "To  perish  beneath 
a  load  one  can  neither  bear  nor  throw  off,"  wrote 
Nietzsche,  —  "that  is  a  philosopher."2  I  shall 
announce  the  song  of  the  lightning,  said  Zara- 
thustra, and  perish  in  the  announcing.3 

Insanity  with  such  a  man  is  but  a  matter  of 
time  ;  he  feels  it  coming  upon  him  ;  he  values  his 
hours  like  a  man  condemned  to  execution.  In 
twenty  days  he  writes  the  Genealogy  of  Morals; 
in  one  year  (1888)  he  produces  The  Twilight  of  the 
Idols,  Antichrist,  The  Case  of  Wagner,  Ecce 
1  z.,  p.  107.  2  T.  I.,  p.  2.  3  z.,  p.  10. 


NIETZSCHE  179 

Homo,  and  his  longest  and  greatest  book,  The 
Will  to  Power.  He  not  only  writes  these  books ; 
he  reads  the  proof-sheets,  straining  his  eyes 
beyond  repair.  He  is  almost  blind  now ;  he  is 
deceived,  taken  advantage  of,  because  he  can 
hardly  see  farther  than  his  touch.  "If  I  were 
blind,"  he  writes  pitifully,  "I  should  be  healthy." l 
Yet  his  body  is  racked  with  pain :  "on  118  days 
this  year  I  have  had  severe  attacks."  2  "I  have 
given  a  name  to  my  pain,  and  call  it  '  a  dog '  —  it 
is  just  as  pitiful,  just  as  importunate  and  shame- 
less; and  I  can  domineer  over  it,  vent  my  bad 
humor  on  it,  as  others  do  with  then  dogs,  servants, 
and  wives."  3 

Meanwhile  the  world  lives  on  unnoticing,  or 
noticing  only  to  misunderstand.  "My  foes  have 
become  mighty,  and  have  so  distorted  my  teach- 
ing, that  my  best  beloved  must  be  ashamed  of  the 
gifts  that  I  gave  them."  4  He  learns  that  the 
libertines  of  Europe  are  using  his  philosophy  as  a 
cloak  for  their  sins  :  "  I  can  read  in  their  faces  that 
they  totally  misunderstand  me,  and  that  it  is 
only  the  animal  in  them  which  rejoices  at  being 
able  to  cast  off  its  fetters."  5  He  finds  one  whom 
he  thinks  to  make  his  disciple ;  he  is  buoyed  up 
for  a  few  days  by  the  hope ;  the  hope  is  shattered, 
and  loneliness  closes  in  once  more  upon  him. 
"A  kingdom  for  a  kind  word  !"  he  cries  out  in  the 
depth  of  his  longing;   and  again  he  writes,  "For 

1  J.  W.,  312.         *  Ibid.,  p.  69 ;   referring  to  1879. 

8  Ibid.,  312.  *  Lonely  N.,  p.  206.  *  Ibid.,  p.  218. 


180      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

years  no  milk  of  human  kindness,  no  breath  of 
love."  1 

In  December,  1888,  one  whom  he  has  thought 
friendly  writes  that  his  brother-in-law  is  sending  to 
a  magazine  an  attack  on  him.  It  is  the  last  blow ; 
it  means  that  his  sister  has  joined  the  others  in 
deserting  him.  "I  take  one  sleeping-draught 
after  another  to  deaden  the  pain,  but  for  all  that  I 
cannot  sleep.  To-day  I  will  take  such  a  dose  that 
I  will  lose  my  wits."  2  He  has  been  taking  chloral, 
and  worse  drugs,  to  pay  for  the  boon  of  sleep ; 
the  poison  tips  the  scale  already  made  heavy  by 
his  blindness  and  eye-strain,  by  his  loneliness,  by 
the  treachery  of  his  friends,  by  his  general  bodily 
ailments ;  he  wakes  up  from  this  final  draught 
in  a  stupor  from  which  he  never  recovers ;  he 
writes  to  Brandes  and  signs  himself  "The  Cru- 
cified" ;  he  wanders  into  the  street,  is  tormented 
by  children,  falls  in  a  fit ;  his  good  landlord 
helps  him  back  to  his  room,  sends  for  the  simple, 
ignorant  doctor  of  the  neighborhood ;  but  it  is 
too  late ;  the  man  is  insane.  Age,  forty-four ; 
another  —  the  only  name  greater  than  his  among 
modern  philosophers  —  had  died  at  that  pitifully 
early  age. 

The  body  lingered  eleven  years  behind  the  mind. 
Death  came  in  1900.  He  was  buried  as  he  had 
wished:  "Promise  me,"  he  had  asked  his  sister, 
many  years  before,  "that  when  I  die  only  my 
friends  shall  stand  about  my  coffin,  and  no  inquisi- 
»  Lonely  N.,  p.  289.  *  Ibid.,  p.  391. 


NIETZSCHE  181 

tive  crowd.  See  that  no  priest  or  anyone  else 
utters  falsehoods  at  my  graveside,  when  I  can  no 
longer  defend  myself;  and  let  me  descend  into 
my  tomb  as  an  honest  pagan."  l 

After  his  death  the  world  began  to  read  him. 
As  in  so  many  cases  the  life  had  to  be  given  that 
the  doctrine  might  be  heard.  "Only  where  there 
are  graves,"  he  had  written  in  Zarathustra,  "are 
there  resurrections."  2 

«  Ibid.,  p.  65.  » Ibid.,  p.  157. 


PART  II 

SUGGESTIONS 


CHAPTER  I 

SOLUTIONS  AND   DISSOLUTIONS 

I 
The  Problem 

And  so  we  come  through  our  five  episodes  in 
the  history  of  the  reconstructive  mind,  and  find 
ourselves  in  the  bewildering  present,  comfortably 
seated,  let  us  say,  in  the  great  reading  room  of 
our  Columbia  Library.  An  attendant  liberates 
us  from  the  maze  of  "Nietzsche's  Works"  lying 
about  us,  and  returns  presently  with  a  stack  of 
thirty  books  purporting  to  give  the  latest  develop- 
ments in  the  field  of  social  study  and  research. 
We  are  soon  lost  in  their  graphs  and  statistics, 
their  records  and  results;  gradually  we  come  to 
feel  beneath  these  dead  facts  the  lives  they  would 
reveal ;  and  as  we  read  we  see  a  picture. 

It  is  the  picture  of  one  life.  We  see  it  begin- 
ning helplessly  in  the  arms  of  the  factory  physi- 
cian; it  is  only  after  some  violence  that  it  con- 
sents to  breathe,  —  as  if  it  hesitates  to  enter 
upon  its  adventure.  It  has  a  touch  of  consump- 
tion but  is  otherwise  a  fair  enough  baby,  says  the 
factory  physician.     It  will  do,  —  not  saying  for 

185 


186      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

what  or  whom.  Luckily,  it  is  a  boy,  and  will 
be  able  to  work  soon.  He  does;  at  the  age  of 
nine  he  becomes  a  newsboy ;  he  is  up  at  five  in 
the  morning  and  peddles  news  till  eight ;  at  nine 
he  gets  to  school,  fagged  out  but  restless;  he 
gives  trouble ;  cannot  memorize  quickly  enough, 
nor  sit  still  long  enough ;  plays  truant,  loving 
the  hard  lessons  of  the  street ;  school  over,  he 
has  a  half-hour  of  play,  but  must  then  travel 
his  news  route  till  six;  after  supper  he  has  no 
taste  for  study;  if  he  cannot  go  down  into  the 
street,  he  will  go  to  bed.  At  fourteen,  hating 
the  school  where  he  is  beaten  or  scolded  daily, 
he  connives  with  his  parents  at  certain  false- 
hoods which  secure  his  premature  entrance  into 
the  factory.  He  works  hard,  and  for  a  time  hap- 
pily enough ;  there  is  more  freedom  here  than 
in  the  school.  He  discovers  sex,  passes  through 
the  usual  chapter  of  accidents,  and  finally  achieves 
manhood  in  the  form  of  a  sexual  disease.  He  falls 
in  love  several  times,  and  out  as  many  times  but 
one ;  he  marries,  shares  his  disease  with  his 
wife,  and  begets  ten  children,  —  nearly  all  of 
them  feeble,  and  two  of  them  blind;  he  does 
not  want  so  many  children,  but  the  priest  has 
told  him  that  religion  commands  it.  He  works 
harder  to  support  them,  but  his  health  is  giving 
way,  and  life  becomes  a  heavy  burden  to  him. 
The  factory  installs  scientific  management,  and 
he  finds  himself  performing  the  same  operation 
every  ten  seconds  from  seven  to  twelve  and  from 


SOLUTIONS   AND    DISSOLUTIONS  187 

one  to  six ;  —  some  three  thousand  times  a  day ; 
he  protests,  but  is  told  that  science  commands 
it.  He  joins  a  union,  and  goes  out  on  strike ; 
his  family  suffer  severely,  one  of  the  children 
dying  of  malnutrition ;  he  wins  a  wage-increase 
of  five  per  cent ;  his  landlord  raises  his  rent,  and 
a  month  later  his  wife  informs  him  that  the  prices 
of  food  and  clothing  have  gone  up  six  per  cent. 
His  country  goes  to  war  about  a  piece  of  territory 
he  has  never  heard  of;  his  one  fairly  strong  boy 
rushes  off  to  the  defence  of  the  colors,  returns 
(age  twenty)  with  one  leg  and  almost  an  arm, 
and  sits  in  the  house  smoking,  drinking,  and 
dribbling  in  repetitious  semi-torpor  his  memories 
of  battle.  Then  comes  street-corner  talk  of 
socialism,  capitalism,  and  other  things  new  and 
therefore  hard  to  understand;  a  glimmer  of 
hope,  a  cloud  of  doubt,  then  resignation.  Four 
of  the  children  die  before  they  are  twenty;  two 
others  become  consumptive  weaklings.  The 
father  is  sent  away  from  the  factory  because  he 
is  too  old  and  feeble ;  he  finds  work  in  a  saloon ; 
drink  helps  him  to  slip  down  ;  he  steals  a  bracelet 
from  the  factory-owner's  kept  woman,  is  arrested, 
tries  to  hang  himself,  but  is  discovered  when  half 
dead,  and  is  restored  to  life  against  his  will.  He 
serves  his  sentence,  returns  to  his  family,  and 
becomes  a  beggar.  He  dies  of  exposure  and 
disease,  and  his  widow  is  supported  by  two  of 
his  daughters,  who  have  become  successful 
prostitutes. 


188      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

It  is  the  picture  of  one  life.  And  as  you  look 
at  it  you  see  beyond  it  the  hundred  thousand 
lives  of  which  it  is  one;  you  see  this  suffering 
and  meaninglessness  as  but  one  hundredth  part 
of  a  thousandth  part  of  the  meaningless  suffering 
of  men  ;  you  hear  the  angry  cries  of  the  rebellious 
young,  the  drunken  laughter  of  the  older  ones 
who  have  no  more  rebellion  in  them,  the  quiet 
weeping  of  the  mothers  of  many  children. 
Around  you  here  you  see  the  happy  faces  of 
young  students,  eloquent  of  comfortable  homes; 
at  your  elbow  a  gentleman  of  family  is  writing  a 
book  on  the  optimism  of  Robert  Browning.  And 
then  suddenly,  beneath  this  world  of  leisure  and 
learning,  you  feel  the  supporting  brawn  of  the 
wearied  workers;  you  vision  the  very  pillars 
of  this  vast  edifice  held  up  painfully,  hour 
after  hour,  on  the  backs  of  a  million  sweat- 
ing men;  your  leisure  is  their  labor,  your  learn- 
ing is  paid  for  by  their  ignorance,  your  luxury  is 
their  toil. 

For  a  moment  the  great  building  seems  to  trem- 
ble, as  if  rebellion  stirred  beneath  and  up- 
heaval was  upon  the  world.  Then  it  is  still 
once  more,  and  you  and  I  are  here  with  our 
thirty  books. 

One  feels  guilty  of  sentiment  here  (after  read- 
ing Nietzsche!),  and  hurries  back  to  the  sober 
features  of  those  crowded  volumes.  Here,  in 
cold  scientific  statement,  is  our  social  problem : 
here  are  volumes  biological  on  heredity,  eugenics, 


SOLUTIONS   AND    DISSOLUTIONS  189 

dietetics,  and  disease;  volumes  sociological  on 
marriage,  prostitution,  the  family,  the  position 
of  woman,  contraception  and  the  control  of  pop- 
ulation ;  volumes  psychological  on  education, 
criminology,  and  the  replacement  of  supernatural 
by  social  religion ;  volumes  economic  on  private 
property,  poverty,  child  labor,  industrial  methods, 
arbitration,  minimum  wage,  trusts,  free  trade, 
immigration,  prohibition,  war;  volumes  political 
on  individualism  and  communism,  anarchism 
and  socialism,  single  tax,  Darwinism  and  politics, 
democracy  and  aristocracy,  patriotism,  imperial- 
ism, electoral  and  administrative  methods; 
methodological  volumes  on  trade-unions  and  craft- 
unions,  " direct  action"  and  "political  action," 
violence  and  non-resistance,  revolution  and  re- 
form. It  is  a  discouraging  maze ;  we  plunge  into 
it  almost  hopelessly.  Several  of  these  authors 
have  schemes  for  taking  the  social  machine 
apart,  and  a  few  even  have  schemes  for  putting 
it  together  again;  hardly  one  of  them  remem- 
bers the  old  warning  that  this  machine  must 
be  kept  going  while  it  is  being  repaired.  And 
each  of  these  solutions,  as  its  author  never  sus- 
pects, is  but  an  added  problem. 

Let  us  listen  to  these  men  for  a  while,  let  us 
follow  them  for  a  space,  and  see  where  they  bring 
us  out.  They  may  not  bring  us  out  at  all ;  but 
perhaps  that  is  just  what  we  need  to  see. 


190      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

II 

::  solutions :: 
1 

Feminism 

And  first,  with  due  propriety,  let  us  listen  to 
the  case  of  woman  vs.  the  status  quo.  We  imag- 
ine the  argument  as  put  by  a  studious  and  ap- 
parently harmless  young  lady.  She  begins  gently 
and  proceeds  crescendo. 

"The  case  for  woman  is  quite  simple;  as 
simple  as  the  case  for  democracy.  We  are 
human  beings,  we  are  governed,  we  are  taxed ; 
and  we  believe  that  just  government  implies 
the  consent  of  the  governed. 

"We  might  have  been  content  with  the  old 
life,  had  you  masters  of  the  world  been  content 
to  leave  us  the  old  life.  But  you  would  not. 
Your  system  of  industry  has  made  the  position 
of  most  young  men  so  hopeless  and  insecure 
that  they  are  year  by  year  putting  back  the  age 
of  marriage.  You  have  forced  us  out  of  our 
homes  into  your  factories;  and  you  have  used 
us  as  a  means  of  making  still  harder  the  compe- 
tition for  employment  among  the  men.  Your 
advocates  speak  of  the  sacredness  of  the  home; 
and  meanwhile  you  have  dragged  5,000,000 
English  women  out  of  their  homes  to  be  the  slaves 


SOLUTIONS   AND   DISSOLUTIONS  191 

of  your  deadening  machines.1  You  exalt  mar- 
riage; and  in  this  country  one  woman  out  of 
every  ten  is  unmarried,  and  one  out  of  every 
twenty  married  women  works  in  your  unclean 
shops.  The  vile  cities  born  of  your  factory-sys- 
tem have  made  life  so  hard  for  us,  temptations 
so  frequent,  vice  so  attractive  and  convenient, 
that  we  cannot  grow  up  among  you  without 
suffering  some  indelible  taint. 

"Some  of  us  go  into  your  factories  because  we 
dread  marriage,  and  some  of  us  marry  because 
we  dread  your  factories.  But  there  is  not  much 
to  choose  between  them.  If  we  marry  we  be- 
come machines  for  supplying  another  generation 
of  workers  and  soldiers ;  and  if  we  talk  of  birth- 
control  you  arrest  us.  As  if  we  had  no  right  to 
all  that  science  has  discovered !  And  the  horror 
of  it  is  that  while  you  forbid  us  to  learn  how  to 
protect  ourselves  and  our  children  from  the  evils 
of  large  families,  you  yourselves  buy  this  knowl- 
edge from  your  physicians  and  use  it;  and  one 
of  your  societies  for  the  prevention  of  birth- 
control  has  been  shown  to  consist  of  members 
with  an  average  of  1.5  children  per  family.2 
Your  physicians  meet  in  learned  assemblies  and 
vote  in  favor  of  maintaining  the  law  which  for- 
bids the  spread  of  this  information ;  and  then  we 
find  that  physicians  have  the  smallest  average 

1  Mrs.  Gallichan,  The  Truth  about  Woman,  New  York,  1914, 
p.  281. 

*  Jos.  McCabe,  Tyranny  of  Shams,  London,  1916,  p.  171. 


192      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

family  in  the  community.1  One  must  be  a  liar 
and  a  thief  to  fit  comfortably  into  this  civiliza- 
tion which  you  ask  us  to  defend. 

"But  we  are  resolved  to  get  this  information; 
and  all  your  laws  to  prevent  us  will  only  lessen 
our  respect  for  law.  We  will  not  any  longer 
bring  children  into  the  world  unless  we  have 
some  reasonable  hope  of  giving  them  a  decent 
life.  And  not  only  that.  We  shall  end,  too, 
the  hypocrisies  of  marriage.  If  you  will  have 
monogamy  you  may  have  it;  but  if  you  con- 
tinue merely  to  pretend  monogamy  we  shall  find 
a  way  of  regaining  our  independence.  We  shall 
not  rest  until  we  have  freed  ourselves  from  the 
sting  of  your  generosity ;  until  our  bread  comes 
not  from  your  hand  in  kindness  but  from  the 
state  or  our  employers  in  recognition  of  our  work. 
Then  we  shall  be  free  to  leave  you,  and  you  free 
to  leave  us,  as  we  were  free  to  take  one  another 
at  the  beginning,  —  so  far,  alas  !  as  the  categorical 
imperative  of  love  left  us  free.  And  our  children 
will  not  suffer;  better  for  them  that  they  see 
us  part  than  that  they  live  with  us  in  the  midst 
of  hypocrisy  and  secret  war. 

"Because  we  want  this  freedom  —  to  stay  or  to 
go  —  this  freedom  to  know  and  control  the  vital 
factors  of  our  lives,  therefore  we  demand  equal 
suffrage.  It  is  but  a  little  thing,  a  mere  begin- 
ning; and  beware  how  you  betray  your  secrets 
in  your  efforts  to  bar  us  from  this  beginning. 

1  Dr.  Drysdale,  The  Small  Family  System,  London,  1915. 


SOLUTIONS   AND   DISSOLUTIONS  193 

Are  you  afraid  to  share  with  us  the  power  of  the 
ballot  ?  Do  you  confess  so  openly  that  you  wish 
to  command  us  without  our  consent,  that  you 
wish  to  use  us  for  your  secret  ends  ?  You  dare  not 
fight  fair  and  in  the  open  ?  Is  the  ballot  a  weapon 
which  you  use  on  us  and  will  not  let  us  use  on  you  ? 
It  is  so  you  conceive  citizenship !  Or  will  you 
ask  us  to  believe  that  you  are  thinking  not  of 
your  own  interests  but  of  posterity? 

"But  we  shall  get  this  from  you,  just  as  we 
get  other  things  from  you,  —  by  repetition. 
And  then  we  shall  go  on  to  make  the  world  more 
fit  for  women  to  live  in :  we  shall  force  open  all 
the  avenues  of  life  that  have  been  closed  to  us 
before,  making  us  narrow  and  petty  and  dull. 
We  shall  compel  your  universities  to  admit  us 
to  their  classes ;  we  shall  enter  your  professions, 
we  shall  compete  with  you  for  office,  we  shall 
win  the  experiences  and  dare  the  adventures 
which  we  need  to  make  us  your  rivals  in  litera- 
ture and  philosophy  and  art.  You  say  we  can- 
not be  your  comrades,  your  friends ;  that  we 
can  be  only  tyrants  or  slaves ;  but  what  else 
can  we  be,  with  all  the  instructive  wealth  of  life 
kept  from  us?  You  hide  from  us  the  great 
books  that  are  being  written  to-day,  and  then 
you  are  surprised  at  our  gossip,  our  silly  scandal- 
mongering,  our  inability  to  converse  with  you 
on  business  and  politics,  on  science  and  religion 
and  philosophy;  you  will  not  let  us  grow,  and 
then  you  complain  because  we  are  so  small, 
o 


194      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

But  we  want  to  grow  now,  we  want  to  grow ! 
We  cannot  longer  be  mothers  only.  The  world 
does  not  need  so  many  children ;  and  even  to 
bring  up  better  children  we  must  have  a  wider 
and  healthier  life.  We  must  have  our  intellects 
stimulated  more  and  our  feelings  less.  We 
have  burst  the  bonds  of  our  old  narrow  world; 
we  must  explore  everything  now.  It  is  too  late 
to  stop  us;  and  if  you  try  you  will  only  make 
life  a  mess  of  hatred  and  conflict  for  us  both. 
And  after  all,  do  you  know  why  we  want  to  grow  ? 
It  is  because  we  long  for  the  day  when  we  shall 
be  no  longer  merely  your  mistresses,  but  also 
your  friends." 


Socialism 

Another  complainant :  a  young  Socialist : 
such  a  man  as  works  far  into  almost  every  night 
in  the  dingy  office  of  his  party  branch,  and  de- 
votes his  Sundays  to  Das  Kapital;  bright-eyed, 
untouched  by  disillusionment ;  fired  by  the  vision 
of  a  land  of  happy  comrades. 

"I  agree  with  the  young  lady,"  he  says;  "the 
source  of  all  our  ills  is  the  capitalist  system.  It 
was  born  of  steam-driven  machinery  and  con- 
ceived in  laissez-faire.  It  saw  the  light  in  Adam 
Smith's  England,  ruined  the  health  of  the  men 
of  that  country,  and  then  came  to  America, 
where  it  grew  fat  on   'liberty'   and   'the  right 


SOLUTIONS   AND   DISSOLUTIONS  195 

to  do  as  one  pleases  with  one's  own.'  It  believed 
in  competition  —  that  is  to  say  war  —  as  its 
God,  in  whom  all  things  lived  and  moved  and 
sweated  dividends;  it  made  the  acquisition  of 
money,  by  no  matter  what  means,  the  test  of 
virtue  and  success,  so  that  honest  men  became 
ashamed  of  themselves  if  they  did  not  fail;  it 
made  all  life  a  matter  of  'push'  and  'pull,' 
like  the  two  sides  of  a  door  in  one  of  those  busi- 
ness palaces  which  make  its  cities  great  mazes 
of  brick  and  stone  rising  like  new  Babels  in  the 
face  of  heaven.  Its  motto  was,  Beware  of  small 
profits;  its  aim  was  the  greatest  possible  happi- 
ness of  the  smallest  possible  number.  Out  of 
competition  it  begot  the  trust,  the  rebate,  and 
the  'gentleman's  agreement';  out  of  'freedom 
of  contract'  it  begot  wage-slavery;  out  of 
'liberty,  equality  and  fraternity'  it  begot  an 
industrial  feudalism  worse  than  the  old  feudalism, 
based  on  the  inheritance  not  of  land,  but  of  the 
living  bodies  and  souls  of  thousands  of  men, 
women  and  children.  When  it  came  (in  1770) 
the  annual  income  of  England  was  $600,000,000 ; 
in  1901  the  annual  income  of  England  was 
$8,000,000,000 ;  the  system  has  made  a  thousand 
millionaires,  but  it  has  left  the  people  starving 
as  before.1  It  has  increased  wages,  and  has  in- 
creased prices  a  trifle  more.  It  has  improved 
the  condition  of  the  upper  tenth  of  the  workers, 

1  Winston   Churchill   in   Parliament,   quoted   by   Schoon- 
maker,  The  World-War  and  Beyond,  New  York,  1915,  p.  95. 


196      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

and  has  thrown  the  great  remaining  mass  of 
the  workers  into  a  hell  of  torpor  and  despair. 
It  has  crowned  all  by  inventing  the  myopic  science 
of  scientific  management,  whereby  men  are  made 
to  work  at  such  speed,  and  with  such  rigid  uni- 
formity, that  the  mind  is  crazed,  and  the  body 
is  worn  out  twenty  years  before  its  time.  It  has 
made  the  world  reek  with  poverty,  and  ugliness, 
and  meanness,  and  the  vulgarity  of  conspicuous 
wealth.  It  has  made  life  intolerable  and  dis- 
graceful to  all  but  sheep  and  pigs. 

"There  is  only  one  way  of  saving  our  civiliza- 
tion—  such  as  there  is  of  it  —  from  wasting 
away  through  the  parasitic  degeneration  of  a 
few  of  its  parts  and  the  malnutrition  of  the  rest ; 
and  that  is  by  frankly  abandoning  this  laissez- 
faire  madness,  and  changing  the  state  into  a 
mechanism  for  the  management  of  the  nation's 
business.  We  workers  must  get  hold  of  the 
offices,  and  turn  government  into  administra- 
tion. Without  that  our  strikes  and  boycotts, 
our  'direct  action'  and  economic  organization, 
arrive  at  little  result;  every  strike  we  'win' 
means  that  prices  will  go  up,  and  our  time  and 
energy  —  and  dues  —  have  gone  to  nothing 
but  self-discipline  in  solidarity.  We  can  control 
prices  only  by  controlling  monopolies;  and  we 
can  control  monopolies  only  by  controlling  gov- 
ernment. That  means  politics,  and  it's  a  scheme 
that  won't  work  until  the  proletariat  get  brains 
enough  to  elect  honest  and  sensible  men  to  office ; 


SOLUTIONS   AND   DISSOLUTIONS  197 

but  if  they  haven't  the  brains  to  do  that  they 
won't  have  the  brains  to  do  anything  effective 
on  the  economic  or  any  other  field.  We  know 
how  hard  it  is  to  get  people  to  think;  but  we 
flatter  ourselves  that  our  propaganda  is  an  edu- 
cative force  that  grows  stronger  every  year, 
and  has  already  achieved  such  power  as  to  de- 
cide the  most  important  election  held  in  this 
country  since  the  Civil  War. 

"Already  a  large  number  of  people  have  been 
educated  —  chiefly  by  our  propaganda  —  to  un- 
derstand, for  example,  the  economic  greed  that 
lies  behind  all  wars.  They  perceive  that  so 
long  as  capital  finds  its  highest  rate  of  profit 
in  the  home  market,  capitalists  see  to  it  that 
peace  remains  secure ;  but  that  when  capital 
has  expanded  to  the  point  at  which  the  rate  of 
interest  begins  to  fall,  or  when  labor  has  ceased 
to  be  docile,  because  it  has  ceased  to  be  unor- 
ganized and  uninformed,  capitalists  then  seek 
foreign  markets  and  foreign  investments,  and 
soon  require  the  help  of  war  —  that  is,  the  lives 
of  the  workers  at  home  —  to  help  them  enforce 
their  terms  on  foreign  governments  and  peoples. 
Only  the  national  ownership  of  capital  can 
change  that.  We  thought  once  that  we  were 
too  civilized  ever  to  go  to  war  again ;  we  begin 
to  see  that  our  industrial  feudalism  leads  inevi- 
tably to  war  and  armaments,  and  the  intellectual 
stagnation  that  comes  from  a  militaristic  mode  of 
national  life.     We  begin  to  see  all  history  as  a 


198      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

Dark  Age  (with  fitful  intervals  of  light),  —  a 
long  series  of  wars  in  which  men  have  killed  and 
died  for  delusions,  fighting  to  protect  the  prop- 
erty of  their  exploiters.  And  it  becomes  a  little 
clearer  to  us  than  before  that  this  awful  succes- 
sion of  killings  and  robberies  is  no  civilization  at 
all,  and  that  we  shall  never  have  a  civilization 
worthy  of  the  name  until  we  transform  our  indus- 
trial war  into  the  cooperative  commonwealth, 
and  all  'foreigners'  into  friends." 


Eugenics 

"My  dear  young  man,"  says  the  Eugenist  at 
this  point,  "you  must  study  biology.  Your 
plan  for  the  improvement  of  mankind  is  all  shot 
through  with  childish  ignorance  of  nature's 
way  of  doing  things.  Come  into  my  laboratory 
for  a  few  years;  and  you  will  learn  how  little 
you  can  do  by  merely  changing  the  environment. 
It's  nature  that  counts,  not  nurture.  Improve- 
ment depends  on  the  elimination  of  the  inferior, 
not  on  their  reformation  by  Socialist  leaflets 
or  settlement  work.  What  you  have  to  do  is 
to  find  some  substitute  for  that  natural  selection 
—  the  automatic  and  ruthless  killing  off  of  the 
unfit  —  which  we  are  more  and  more  frustrating 
with  our  short-sighted  charity.  Humanitari- 
anism  must  get  informed.  Our  squeamishness 
about  interfering  with  the  holy  'liberty  of   the 


SOLUTIONS   AND   DISSOLUTIONS  199 

individual'  will  have  to  be  moderated  by  some 
sense  of  the  right  of  society  to  protect  itself 
from  interference  by  the  individual.  Here  are 
the  feeble-minded,  for  example;  they  breed 
more  rapidly  than  healthy  people  do,  and  they 
almost  always  transmit  their  defect.  If  you 
don't  interfere  with  these  people,  if  you  don't 
teach  them  or  force  them  to  be  childless,  you 
will  have  an  increase  in  insanity  along  with  the 
development  of  humanity.  Think  of  making 
a  woman  suffer  to  deliver  into  the  world  a  cripple 
or  an  idiot.  And  further,  consider  that  the  lowest 
eighth  of  the  people  produce  one-half  of  the  next 
generation.  The  better  people,  the  more  vigor- 
ous and  healthy  people,  are  refusing  to  have 
children ;  every  year  the  situation  is  becoming 
more  critical.  City-life  and  factory-life  make 
things  still  worse;  young  men  coming  from  the 
country  plunge  into  the  maelstrom  of  the  city, 
then  into  its  femalestrom ;  they  emerge  with 
broken  health,  marry  deformities  dressed  up  in 
the  latest  fashion,  and  produce  children  inferior 
in  vigor  and  ability  to  themselves.  Given  a 
hundred  years  more  of  this,  and  western  Europe 
and  America  will  be  in  a  condition  to  be  overcome 
easily  by  the  fertile  and  vigorous  races  of  the 
East.  That  is  what  you  have  to  think  of.  The 
problem  is  larger  than  that  of  making  poor  people 
less  poor;  it  is  the  problem  of  preserving  our 
civilization.  Your  socialism  will  help,  but  it 
will  be  the  merest  beginning;    it  will  be  but  an 


200      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

introduction  to  the  socialization  of  selection,  — 
which  is  eugenics.  We  will  prevent  procreation 
by  people  who  have  a  transmissible  defect  or 
disease ;  we  will  require  certificates  of  health 
and  clean  ancestry  before  permitting  marriage ; 
we  will  encourage  the  mating,  with  or  without 
love,  of  men  and  women  possessed  of  energy 
and  good  physique.  We  will  teach  people,  in 
Mr.  Marett's  phrase,  to  marry  less  with  their 
eyes  and  more  with  their  heads.  It  will  take  us 
a  long  while  to  put  all  this  into  effect ;  but  we 
will  put  it.  Time  is  on  our  side ;  every  year 
will  make  our  case  stronger.  Within  half  a 
century  the  educated  world  will  come  and  beg 
us  to  guide  them  in  a  eugenic  revolution." 


Anarchism 

A  gentle  anarchist : 

"You  do  well  to  talk  of  revolution;  but  you 
do  wrong  to  forget  the  individual  in  the  race. 
Your  eugenic  revolution  will  not  stop  the  exploita- 
tion of  the  workers  by  the  manufacturers  through 
the  state.  Give  men  justice  and  they  will  soon 
be  healthy ;  give  them  the  decent  life  which  is 
the  only  just  reward  for  their  work,  and  you  will 
not  need  eugenics.  Instead  of  bothering  about 
parasitic  germs  you  should  attend  to  parasitic 
exploiters ;  it  is  in  this  social  parasitism  that 
the  real  danger  of  degeneration  lies.     Continued 


SOLUTIONS   AND    DISSOLUTIONS  201 

injustice  of  employers  to  employees  is  splitting 
every  western  nation  into  factions ;  class-loyalty 
will  soon  be  stronger  than  loyalty  to  the  com- 
munity ;  and  the  time  will  come  when  nations 
in  which  this  civil  war  has  not  been  superseded 
by  voluntary  mutual  aid  will  crumble  into 
oblivion. 

"And  yet  men  are  willing  to  be  loyal  to  the 
community,  if  the  community  is  organized  to 
give  them  justice.  If  exploitation  were  to  cease 
there  would  be  such  bonds  of  brotherhood  among 
men  as  would  make  the  community  practically 
everlasting.  All  you  need  do  is  to  let  men  co- 
operate in  freedom.  They  long  to  cooperate ; 
all  evolution  shows  a  growth  in  the  ability  to  co- 
operate ;  man  surpassed  the  brute  just  because  of 
this.  Nor  is  law  or  state  needed  ;  coercive  govern- 
ment is  necessary  only  in  societies  founded  on  in- 
justice. The  state  has  always  been  an  instrument 
of  exploitation ;  and  law  is  merely  the  organized 
violence  of  the  ruling  class.  It  is  a  subtle  scheme ; 
it  enables  industrial  lords  to  do  without  any  pangs 
of  conscience  what  but  for  their  statute-books 
might  give  them  a  qualm  or  two.  Notice,  for 
example,  how  perfectly  Christian  such  slaughters 
as  those  in  Colorado  or  Virginia  can  be  made  to 
appear  —  even  to  the  slaughterers  —  by  the 
delightful  expedient  of  the  statute-book.  They 
kill  and  call  it  law,  so  that  they  may  sleep. 

"And  then  we  are  told  that  one  must  never 
use  violence  in  labor  disputes.     But  obviously 


202      PHILOSOPHY   AND    THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

it  is  precisely  violence  that  is  used  against  labor, 
and  against  the  free  spirit.  As  a  matter  of  his- 
tory, rebels  did  not  begin  to  use  violence  on  the 
authorities  until  the  authorities  had  used  violence 
on  them.  We  feel  ourselves  quite  justified  in 
using  any  means  of  attack  on  a  system  so  founded 
in  coercion.  The  whole  question  with  us  is  one 
not  of  morals  but  of  expediency.  We  have  been 
moral  a  little  too  long." 


Individualism 

"Precisely,"  says  the  Stirnerite  anarchist; 
"it  is  all  a  question  of  might,  not  of  right;  and 
we  exploited  ones  may  be  as  right  as  rectitude 
and  never  get  anywhere  unless  we  can  rhyme 
a  little  might  to  our  right.  Each  of  us  has  a 
right  to  do  whatever  he  is  strong  enough  to  do. 
'One  gets  farther  with  a  handful  of  might  than 
with  a  bagful  of  right.'  He  who  wants  much, 
and  knows  how  to  get  it,  has  in  all  times  taken 
it,  as  Napoleon  did  the  continent,  and  the  French 
Algeria.  Therefore  the  only  point  is  that  the 
respectful  'lower  classes'  should  at  length  learn 
to  take  for  themselves  what  they  want." 

6 

Individualism  Again 

And  lastly,  Advocatus  Diaboli,  Mr.  Status 
Quo: 


SOLUTIONS   AND   DISSOLUTIONS  203 

"I  agree  with  you  right  heartily,  Sir  Stirnerite 
anarchist ;  it  is  time  you  children  came  to  under- 
stand that  everything  is  a  question  of  power. 
Let  the  fittest  survive  and  let  us  all  use  whatever 
means  we  find  expedient.  I  am  frank  with  you 
now ;  but  you  must  not  be  surprised  if  to-morrow 
I  write  out  a  few  checks  for  the  salaries  of  the 
liars  whom  I  have  in  my  employ.  Why  should 
we  tell  the  truth  and  go  under?  Surely  you 
will  understand  that  not  all  knowledge  is  good  for 
all  men.  If  it  gives  you  satisfaction,  for  example, 
to  spread  information  about  birth-control,  you 
will  not  feel  hurt  if  it  gives  us  satisfaction  to 
oppose  you,  for  the  sake  of  the  future  armies  of 
unemployed  without  which  our  great  scheme 
of  industry  would  be  seriously  hampered. 

"And  I  agree  with  your  fellow-anarchist, 
that  the  state  is  often  a  nuisance.  I  can  make 
use  of  a  little  government;  but  when  the  state 
begins  to  tell  me  how  to  run  my  business  then 
I  feel  as  if  your  criticism  of  the  state  is  very  just 
—  and  convenient.  I  am  an  individualist,  — 
a  good  old  American  individualist,  —  like  Jef- 
ferson and  Emerson.  The  state  can't  manage 
industry  half  as  well  as  we  can.  You  know  — 
as  our  Socialists  do  not  —  that  government 
ownership  is  only  ownership  by  politicians,  by 
Hinky-Dinks  and  Bath-house  Johns;  and  I 
can  tell  you  from  intimate  knowledge  of  these 
people  that  they  will  do  anything  for  money 
except  efficient  administrative  work. 


204      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

"Your  scheme  of  having  the  workers  take 
over  the  industries  is  a  good  scheme  —  for  the 
millennium.  Where  would  you  get  men  to  direct 
you?  They  come  to  us  because  we  pay  them 
well ;  if  your  syndicalist  shops  would  pay  them 
as  well  as  we  do,  they  would  be  the  begin- 
ning of  a  new  aristocracy ;  if  you  think  these 
clever  men  will  work  for  'honor'  you  are 
leaning  on  an  airy  dream.  Destroy  private 
property  and  you  will  have  a  nation  of  hoboes 
and  Hindus. 

"As  to  exploitation,  what  would  you  have? 
We  are  strong,  and  you  are  weak ;  it  is  the  law 
of  nature  that  we  should  use  you,  just  as  it  is 
the  law  of  nature  that  one  species  should  use  the 
weaker  species  as  its  prey.  The  weaker  will 
always  suffer,  with  or  without  law.  Even  if 
all  bellies  are  full,  the  majority  will  envy  the 
intellectual  power  of  their  betters,  and  will  suffer 
just  as  keenly  on  the  intellectual  plane  as  they 
do  now  on  the  physical.  The  alternative  of 
the  under-dog  is  to  get  intelligence  and  power, 
or  'stay  put.' 

"My  advice,  then,  is  to  let  things  be.  You 
can  change  the  superficial  conditions  of  the 
struggle  for  existence  and  for  power,  but  the 
fundamental  facts  of  it  will  remain.  Monarchy, 
aristocracy,  democracy,  —  it's  all  the  same. 
The  most  powerful  will  rule,  whether  by  armies 
or  by  newspapers ;  it  makes  no  difference  if  God 
is  on  the  side  of  the  biggest  battalions,   or  the 


SOLUTIONS   AND    DISSOLUTIONS  205 

side  of  the  biggest  type.     We  bought  the  battal- 
ions ;  we  buy  the  type. 

"Come,  let  us  get  back  to  our  business." 

Ill 

Dissolutions 

Here  is  a  redudio  ad  absurdum  of  our  social 
'isms;  and  here  is  the  history  of  many  a  social 
rebel.  From  dissatisfaction  to  socialism,  from 
socialism  to  anarchism,  from  anarchism  to  Stir- 
nerism,  from  Stirnerism  and  the  cult  of  the  ego 
to  Nietzsche  and  the  right  to  exploit ;  —  so  has 
many  a  man  made  the  merry-go-round  of  thought 
and  come  back  wearily  at  last  to  the  terra  firma 
of  the  thing  that  is.  We  sail  into  the  sea  of  social 
controversy  without  chart  or  compass  or  rudder ; 
and  though  we  encounter  much  wind,  we  never 
make  the  port  of  our  desire.  We  need  maps, 
and  instruments,  and  knowledge ;  we  need  to 
make  inquiries,  to  face  our  doubts,  to  define 
our  purposes ;  we  shall  have  to  examine  more 
ruthlessly  our  preconceptions  and  hidden  pre- 
mises, to  force  into  the  light  the  wishes  that 
secretly  father  our  illegitimate  thoughts.  We 
must  ask  ourselves  questions  that  will  reach 
down  to  the  tenderest  roots  of  our  philosophies. 

You  are  a  feminist,  let  us  say.  Very  well. 
Have  you  ever  considered  the  sociological  conse- 
quences of  that  very  real  disintegration  of  the 
"home"  which  an  advancing  feminism  implies? 


206      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

Granted  that  this  disintegration  has  been  begun 
by  the  industrial  revolution.  Do  you  want  it  to 
go  on  more  rapidly?  Do  you  want  women  to 
become  more  like  men?  Do  you  think  that  the 
"new  woman"  will  care  to  have  children?  It 
is  surely  better  for  the  present  comfort  of  our 
society  that  there  should  be  a  considerable  fall 
in  the  birth  rate ;  but  will  that  expose  the  people 
of  Europe  and  America  to  absorption  by  the 
races  of  the  East?  You  argue  that  the  case  for 
feminism  is  as  simple  as  the  case  for  democracy; 
but  is  the  case  for  democracy  simple?  Is  democ- 
racy competent?  Is  it  bringing  us  where  we 
want  to  go?  Or  is  it  a  sort  of  collective  deter- 
mination to  drift  with  the  tide,  —  a  sort  of 
magnified  laissez-faire f  And  as  to  "rights" 
and  "justice,"  how  do  you  answer  Nietzsche's 
contention  that  the  more  highly  organized  species, 
sex,  or  class,  must  by  its  very  nature  use,  command, 
and  exploit  the  less  highly  organized  species, 
sex,  or  class? 

You  are  a  Socialist ;  and  you  yearn  for  a  Utopia 
of  friends  and  equals ;  but  will  you,  to  make 
men  equal,  be  compelled  to  chain  the  strength 
of  the  strong  with  many  laws  and  omnipresent 
force  ?  —  will  you  sacrifice  the  superiority  of 
the  chosen  few  to  the  mediocrity  of  the  many? 
Will  you,  to  control  the  exploiter,  be  obliged  to 
control  all  men,  even  in  detail  ?  —  will  your 
socialism  really  bring  the  slavery  and  servile 
state  that  Spencer  and  Chesterton  and  Belloc 


SOLUTIONS   AND   DISSOLUTIONS  207 

fear?  Is  further  centralization  of  government 
desirable?  Have  you  considered  sufficiently  the 
old  difficulty  about  the  stimulus  to  endeavor  in 
a  society  that  should  restrict  private  property 
to  a  minimum  and  prohibit  inheritance?  Have 
you  arranged  to  protect  your  cooperative  com- 
monwealth by  limiting  immigration  —  from  Eu- 
rope and  from  heaven  ?  x  Are  you  not,  in  gen- 
eral, exaggerating  the  force  of  the  aggregative 
as  against  the  segregative  tendencies  in  human 
nature?  And  do  you  think  that  a  change  of 
laws  can  make  the  weak  elude  the  exploiting 
arm  of  the  strong?  Will  not  the  strongest  men 
always  make  whatever  laws  are  made,  and  rule 
wherever  men  are  ruled?  Can  any  government 
stand  that  is  not  the  expression  of  the  strongest 
forces  in  the  community?  And  if  the  strongest 
force  be  organized  labor,  are  you  sure  that  or- 
ganized labor  will  not  exploit  and  tyrannize? 
Will  the  better  organized  and  skilled  workers 
be  "just"  to  the  unskilled  and  imperfectly  or- 
ganized workers?  And  what  do  you  mean  by 
"justice"? 

And  as  to  the  eugenist,  surely  it  is  unnecessary 
to  expose  his  unpreparedness  to  meet  the  ques- 
tions which  his  programme  raises.  Questions,  for 
example,  as  to  what  "units"  of  character  to 
breed  for,  if  there  are  such  "units";  whether 
definite  breeding  for  certain  results  would  forfeit 

1  Carver,  Essays  in  Social   Justice,  New    York,   1915,  p. 
261. 


208      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

adaptive  plasticity ;  whether  compulsory  sterili- 
zation is  warranted  by  our  knowledge  of  heredity ; 
whether  serious  disease  is  not  often  associated 
with  genius ;  whether  the  native  mental  endow- 
ments of  rich  and  poor  are  appreciably  different, 
and  whether  the  "comparative  infertility  of  the 
upper  classes"  is  really  making  for  the  deteriora- 
tion of  the  race ;  whether  progress  depends  on 
racial  changes  so  much  as  on  changes  in  social 
institutions  and  traditions.     And  so  on. 

And  the  anarchist,  whom  one  loves  if  only  for 
the  fervor  of  his  hope  and  the  beauty  of  his 
dream,  —  the  anarchist  falters  miserably  in  the 
face  of  interrogation.  If  all  laws  were  to  be 
suspended  to-morrow,  all  coercion  of  citizen  by 
state,  how  long  would  it  be  before  new  laws 
would  arise?  Would  the  aforementioned  strong 
cease  to  be  strong  and  the  weak  cease  to  be  weak  ? 
Would  people  be  willing  to  forego  private  prop- 
erty? Are  not  belief  and  disbelief  in  private 
property  determined  less  by  logic  and  "justice" 
than  by  one's  own  success  or  failure  in  the  acquisi- 
tion of  private  property  ?  Do  only  the  weak  and 
uncontrolled  advocate  absolute  lack  of  restraint? 
Do  most  men  want  liberty  so  much  that  they 
will  tolerate  chaos  and  a  devil-take-the-hind- 
most  individualism  for  the  sake  of  it?  Can  it 
be,  after  all,  that  freedom  is  a  negative  thing,  — 
that  what  men  want  is,  for  some,  achievement, 
for  others,  peace,  —  and  that  for  these  they  will 
give  even  freedom?     What  if  a  great  number 


SOLUTIONS   AND   DISSOLUTIONS  209 

of  people  dread  liberty,  and  are  not  at  all  so  sen- 
sitive to  restraint  and  commandment  as  the 
anarchist?  Perhaps  only  children  and  geniuses 
can  be  truly  anarchistic?  Perhaps  freedom 
itself  is  a  problem  and  not  a  solution?  Does 
the  mechanization,  through  law  and  custom,  of 
certain  elements  in  our  social  behavior,  like  the 
mechanization,  through  habit  and  instinct,  of 
certain  elements  in  individual  behavior,  result 
in  greater  freedom  for  the  higher  powers  and 
functions?  Again,  to  have  freedom  for  all,  all 
must  be  equal ;  but  does  not  development  make 
for  differentiation  and  inequality?  Consider 
the  America  of  three  hundred  years  ago ;  a 
nation  of  adventurous  settlers,  hardly  any  of 
them  better  off  than  any  other,  —  all  of  a  class, 
all  on  a  level;  and  see  what  inequalities  and 
castes  a  few  generations  have  produced !  Is 
there  a  necessary  antithesis  between  liberty  and 
order,  freedom  and  control  ?  —  or  are  order  and 
control  the  first  condition  of  freedom?  Does 
not  law  serve  many  splendid  purposes,  —  could 
it  not  serve  more?  Is  the  state  necessary  so 
long  as  there  are  long-eared  and  long-fingered 
gentry  ? 

As  for  your  revolutions,  who  profits  by  them? 
The  people  who  have  suffered,  or  the  people  who 
have  thought?  Is  a  revolution,  so  far  as  the 
poor  are  concerned,  merely  the  dethronement 
of  one  set  of  rulers  or  exploiters  so  that  another 
set  may  have  a  turn  ?  Do  not  most  revolutions, 
v 


210      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

like  that  which  wished  to  storm  heaven  by  a 
tower,  end  in  a  confusion  of  tongues?  And  after 
each  outbreak  do  not  the  workers  readapt  them- 
selves to  their  new  slavery  with  that  ease  and 
torpid  patience  which  are  the  despair  of  every 
leader,  until  they  are  awakened  by  another  quarrel 
among  their  masters  ? 

One  could  fling  about  such  questions  almost 
endlessly,  till  every  'ism  should  disappear  under 
interrogation  points.     Every  such  'ism,  clearly, 
is   but   a   half-truth,   an   arrested   development, 
suffering  from  malinformation.     One  is  reminded 
of  the  experiment  in  which  a  psychologist  gave  a 
ring-puzzle  to  a  monkey,  and  —  in  another  room 
—  a  like  puzzle  to  a  university  professor :    the 
monkey  fell  upon  the  puzzle  at  once  with  teeth 
and  feet  and  every  manner  of  hasty  and  hap- 
hazard   reaction,  —  until    at    last    the    puzzle, 
dropped  upon  the  floor,  came  apart  by  chance; 
the  professor  sat  silent  and  motionless  before 
the  puzzle,  working  out  in  thought  the  issue  of 
many    suggested    solutions,    and    finally,    after 
forty  minutes,  touched  it  to  undo  it  at  a  stroke. 
Our    'isms   are   simian   reactions   to   the   social 
puzzle.     We  jump  at  conclusions,  we  are  impinged 
upon  extremes,  we  bound  from  opposite  to  oppo- 
site, we  move  with  blinders  to  a  passion-colored 
goal.     Some  of  us  are  idealists,   and   see  only 
the  beautiful  desire;    some  of  us  are  realists, 
and  see  only  the  dun  and  dreary  fact;    hardly 


SOLUTIONS   AND   DISSOLUTIONS  211 

any  of  us  can  look  fact  in  the  face  and  see  through 
it  to  that  which  it  might  be.  We  "bandy  half- 
truths"  for  a  decade  and  then  relapse  into  the 
peaceful  insignificance  of  conformity.1 

It  dawns  on  students  of  social  problems,  as  it 
dawned  long  since  on  philosophers,  that  the  be- 
ginning of  their  wisdom  is  a  confession  of  their 
ignorance.  We  know  now  that  the  thing  we 
need,  and  for  lack  of  which  we  blunder  valiantly 
into  futility,  is  not  good  intentions  but  informed 
intelligence.  All  problems  are  problems  of  edu- 
cation ;  all  the  more  so  in  a  democracy.  Not 
because  education  can  change  the  original  nature 
of  man,  but  because  intelligent  cooperation 
can  control  the  stimuli  which  determine  the  inju- 

1  The  "experimental  attitude  .  .  .  substitutes  detailed 
analyses  for  whosesale  assertions,  specific  inquiries  for  temper- 
amental convictions,  small  facts  for  opinions  whose  size  is 
in  precise  ratio  to  their  vagueness.  It  is  within  the  social 
sciences,  in  morals,  politics,  and  education,  that  thinking  still 
goes  on  by  large  antitheses,  by  theoretical  oppositions  of 
order  and  freedom,  individualism  and  socialism,  culture  and 
utility,  spontaneity  and  discipline,  actuality  and  tradition. 
The  field  of  the  physical  sciences  was  once  occupied  by  similar 
'total*  views,  whose  emotional  appeal  was  inversely  as  their 
intellectual  clarity.  But  with  the  advance  of  the  experi- 
mental method,  the  question  has  ceased  to  be  which  one  of 
two  rival  claimants  has  a  right  to  the  field.  It  has  become  a 
question  of  clearing  up  a  confused  subject  matter  by  attack- 
ing it  bit  by  bit.  I  do  not  know  a  case  where  the  final  result 
was  anything  like  victory  for  one  or  another  among  the  pre- 
experimental  notions.  All  of  them  disappeared  because  they 
became  increasingly  irrelevant  to  the  situation  discovered, 
and  with  their  detected  irrelevance  they  became  unmeaning  and 
uninteresting."  —  Professor  John  Dewey,  New  Republic, 
Feb.  3,  1917. 


212      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

riousness  or  beneficence  of  original  dispositions. 
Impulse  is  not  the  enemy  of  intelligence ;  it  is 
its  raw  material.  We  desire  knowledge  —  and 
particularly  knowledge  of  ourselves  —  so  that 
we  may  know  what  external  conditions  evoke 
destructive,  and  what  conditions  evoke  construc- 
tive, responses.  We  do  not,  for  example,  expect 
intelligence  to  eradicate  pugnacity;  we  do  not 
want  it  to  do  so ;  but  we  want  to  eradicate  the 
environmental  conditions  which  turn  this  impulse 
to  wholesale  suicide.  Men  should  fight ;  it  is 
the  essence  of  their  value  that  they  are  willing  to 
fight ;  the  problem  of  intelligence  is  to  discuss 
and  to  create  means  for  the  diversion  of  pugnacity 
to  socially  helpful  ends.  Character  is  per  se 
neither  good  nor  bad,  but  becomes  one  or  the 
other  according  to  the  nature  of  the  stimuli 
presented.  What  we  call  moral  reform,  then, 
waits  on  information  and  consequent  remould- 
ing of  the  factors  determining  the  direction  of 
our  original  dispositions.  We  become  "better" 
men  and  women  only  so  far  as  we  become  more 
intelligent.  Just  as  psychoanalysis  can,  in  some 
measure,  reconstruct  the  personal  life,  so  social 
analysis  can  reconstruct  social  life  and  turn  into 
productive  channels  the  innocent  but  too  often 
destructive  forces  of  original  nature.1 

1  All  this  has  been  indicated  —  with,  however,  too  little 
emphasis  on  the  reconstructive  function  of  intelligence  —  by 
Bertrand  Russell  in  Principles  of  Social  Reconstruction  (Lon- 
don, 1916)  ;    and  more  popularly  by  Max  Eastman  in  Under- 


SOLUTIONS   AND    DISSOLUTIONS  213 

Our  problem,  then,  to  repeat  once  more  our 
central  theme,  is  to  facilitate  the  growth  and 
spread  of  intelligence.  With  this  definition  of  the 
issue  we  come  closer  to  our  thesis,  —  that  the  social 
problem  must  be  approached  through  philosophy, 
and  philosophy  through  the  social  problem. 

standing  Germany  (New  York,  1916)  ;  it  has  been  put  very 
briefly  again  and  again  by  Professor  Dewey,  —  e.g.,  in  an 
essay  on  "Progress"  in  the  International  Journal  of  Ethics, 
April,  1916. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   RECONSTRUCTIVE    FUNCTION    OF   PHILOSOPHY 

I 
Epistemologs 

Now  there  are  a  great  many  people  who  will 
feel  no  thrill  at  all  at  the  mention  of  philosophy, 
—  who  will  rather  consider  themselves  excused 
by  the  very  occurrence  of  the  word  from  continu- 
ing on  the  road  which  this  discussion  proposes 
to  travel.  No  man  dares  to  talk  of  philosophy 
in  these  busy  days  except  after  an  apologetic 
preface ;  philosophers  themselves  have  come  to 
feel  that  their  thinking  is  so  remote  from  practical 
endeavor  that  they  have  for  the  most  part  aban- 
doned the  effort  to  relate  their  work  to  the  concrete 
issues  of  life.  In  the  eyes  of  the  man  who  does 
things  philosophy  is  but  an  aerial  voyaging 
among  the  mists  of  transcendental  dialectic,  or 
an  ineffective  moralizing  substitute  for  super- 
natural religion.  Philosophy  was  once  mistress 
of  all  the  disciplines  of  thought  and  search  ; 
now  none  so  poor  to  do  her  reverence. 

There  is  no  way  of  meeting  this  indictment 

214 


THE   RECONSTRUCTIVE   FUNCTION       215 

other  than  to  concede  it.  It  is  true.  It  is  mild. 
Only  a  lover  of  philosophy  can  know  —  with 
the  intimacy  of  a  particeps  criminis  —  how 
deeply  philosophy  has  fallen  from  her  ancient 
heights.  Looking  back  to  Greece  we  find  that 
philosophy  there  was  a  real  pursuit  of  wisdom, 
a  very  earnest  effort  to  arrive  by  discussion  and 
self-criticism  at  a  way  of  life,  a  philosophia  vitm 
magistra,  a  knowledge  of  the  individual  and  social 
good  and  of  the  means  thereto,  a  conscious  direc- 
tion of  social  institutions  to  ethical  ends ;  philos- 
ophy and  life  in  those  days  were  bound  up  with 
one  another  as  mechanics  is  now  bound  up  with 
efficient  construction.  Even  in  the  Middle  Ages 
philosophy  meant  coordinate  living,  synthetic 
behavior ;  with  all  their  reputation  for  cobweb- 
spinning,  the  Scholastics  were  much  closer  to 
life  in  their  thinking  than  most  modern  philos- 
ophers have  been  in  theirs. 

The  lapse  of  philosophy  from  her  former 
significance  and  vitality  is  the  result  of  the  exag- 
gerated emphasis  placed  on  the  epistemological 
problem  by  modern  thinkers ;  and  this  in  turn 
is  in  great  part  due  to  the  difficulties  on  which 
Descartes  stumbled  in  his  effort  to  reconcile 
his  belief  in  mechanism  with  his  desire  to  placate 
the  Jesuits.  How  minor  a  role  is  played  by  the 
problems  of  the  relation  between  subject  and 
object,  the  validity  of  knowledge,  epistemological 
realism  and  idealism,  in  a  frankly  mechanist 
philosophy,    appears    in    Bacon,    Hobbes,    and 


216      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

Spinoza ; l  these  men  —  deducting  Bacon's 
astute  obeisance  to  theology  —  know  what  they 
want  and  say  what  they  mean ;  they  presume, 
with  a  maturity  so  natural  as  to  be  mistaken  for 
naivete,  that  the  validity  of  thought  is  a  matter 
to  be  decided  by  action  rather  than  by  theory ; 
they  take  it  for  granted  that  the  supreme  and 
ultimate  purpose  of  philosophy  is  not  analysis 
but  synthesis,  not  the  intellectual  categorizing 
of  experience  but  the  intelligent  reconstruction 
of  life.  Indeed,  as  one  pursues  this  clew  through 
the  devious  —  almost  stealthy  —  course  of  mod- 
ern speculation  it  appears  that  no  small  part  of 
the  epistemological  development  has  been  made 
up  of  the  oscillations,  compromises,  and  obscuri- 
ties natural  in  men  who  were  the  exponents 
and  the  victims  of  a  painful  transition.  Civiliza- 
tion was  passing  from  one  intellectual  basis 
to  another ;  and  in  these  weird  epistemologs  the 
vast  process  came  uncomfortably  to  semicon- 
sciousness. They  were  old  bottles  bursting  with 
new  wine ;  and  their  tragedy  was  that  they  knew 
it.  They  clung  to  the  old  world  even  while  the 
new  one  was  swimming  perilously  into  their 
ken  ;  they  found  a  pitiful  solace  in  the  old  phrases, 
the  old  paraphernalia  of  a  dead  philosophy ;  and 
in  the  suffering  of  their  readjustment  there  was, 
quite  inevitably,  some  measure  of  self-deception. 
And  that  is  why  they  are  so  hard  to  under- 

1  This  is  not  a  defence  of  mechanism  or  materialism ;    it 
is  a  plea  for  a  better  perspective  in  philosophy. 


THE    RECONSTRUCTIVE    FUNCTION       217 

stand.  Even  so  subtle  a  thinker  as  Santayana 
finds  them  too  difficult,  and  abandons  them  in 
righteous  indignation.  There  is  no  worse  con- 
founding of  confusion  than  self-deception :  let 
a  man  be  honest  with  himself,  and  he  may  lie 
with  tolerable  intelligibility  and  success;  but 
let  him  be  his  own  dupe  and  he  may  write  a  thou- 
sand critiques  and  never  get  himself  understood. 
Indeed,  some  of  them  do  not  want  to  be  under- 
stood, they  only  want  to  be  believed.  Hegel, 
for  example,  was  not  at  all  surprised  to  find  that 
no  one  understood  him ;  he  would  have  been 
surprised  and  chagrined  to  find  that  some  one 
had.  Obscurity  can  cover  a  multitude  of  sins. 
Add  to  this  self-befoggery  the  appalling  his- 
torismus  (as  Eucken  calls  it),  the  strange  lifeless 
interest  in  the  past  for  its  own  sake,  the  petty 
poring  over  problems  of  text  and  minutiae  of 
theory  in  the  classics  of  speculation ;  —  and  the 
indictment  of  philosophy  as  a  useless  appanage 
of  the  idle  rich  gains  further  ground.  We  do 
not  seem  to  understand  how  much  of  the  past  is 
dead,  how  much  of  it  is  but  a  drag  on  the  imagina- 
tive courage  that  dares  to  think  of  a  future  differ- 
ent from  the  past,  and  better.  Philosophy  is 
too  much  a  study  of  the  details  of  superseded 
systems  ;  it  is  too  little  the  study  of  the  miraculous 
living  moment  in  which  the  past  melts  into  the 
present  and  the  future  finds  creation.  Most 
people  have  an  invincible  habit  of  turning  their 
backs  to  the  future ;   they  like  the  past  because 


218      PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    PROBLEM 

the  future  is  an  adventure.  So  with  most  philos- 
ophers to-day;  they  like  to  write  analyses  of 
Kant,  commentaries  on  Berkeley,  discussions  of 
Plato's  myths;  they  are  students  remembering, 
they  have  not  yet  become  men  thinking.  They 
do  not  know  that  the  work  of  philosophy  is  in 
the  street  as  well  as  in  the  library,  they  do  not 
feel  and  understand  that  the  final  problem  of 
philosophy  is  not  the  relation  of  subject  and  object 
but  the  misery  of  men. 

And  so  it  is  well  that  philosophy,  such  as  it 
chiefly  is  in  these  days,  should  be  scorned  as  a 
busy  idler  in  a  world  where  so  much  work  is 
asking  to  be  done. 

Philosophy  was  vital  in  Plato's  day;  so  vital 
that  some  philosophers  were  exiled  and  others 
put  to  death.  No  one  would  think  of  putting  a 
philosopher  to  death  to-day.  Not  because  men  are 
more  delicate  about  killing;  but  because  there 
is  no  need  to  kill  that  which  is  already  dead.1 

II 

Philosophy  as  Control 

But  after  all,  this  is  not  a  subject  for  rhetoric 
so  much  as  for  resolution.     Here  we  are  again  in 

1  It  would  be  invidious  to  name  the  exceptions  which  one 
is  glad  to  remember  here  ;  but  it  is  in  place  to  say  that  the  prac- 
tical arrest  of  Bertrand  Russell  is  a  sign  of  resuscitation  on 
the  part  of  philosophy,  —  a  sign  for  which  all  lovers  of  philos- 
ophy should  be  grateful.  When  philosophers  are  once  more 
feared,  philosophy  will  once  mote  be  respected. 


THE   RECONSTRUCTIVE    FUNCTION       219 

our  splendid  library;  here  we  sit,  financially  se- 
cure, released  from  the  material  necessities  of  life, 
to  stand  apart  and  study,  to  report  and  help  and 
state  and  solve ;  under  us  those  millions  holding 
us  aloft  so  that  we  may  see  for  them,  dying  by 
the  thousand  so  that  we  may  find  the  truth  that 
will  make  the  others  free;  and  what  do  we  do? 
We  make  phrases  like  "esse  est  percipi,"  "syn- 
thetic judgments  a  -priori"  and  "being  is  noth- 
ing"; we  fill  the  philosophic  world  with  great 
Saharas  of  Kantiana;  we  write  epistemology  for 
two  hundred  years.  Surely  there  is  but  one 
decent  thing  for  us  to  do :  either  philosophy  is 
of  vital  use  to  the  community,  or  it  is  not.  If  it 
is  not,  we  will  abandon  it ;  if  it  is,  then  we  must 
seek  that  vital  use  and  show  it.  We  have  been 
privileged  to  study  and  think  and  travel  and 
learn  the  world ;  and  now  we  stand  gaping 
before  it  as  if  there  were  nothing  wrong,  as 
if  nothing  could  be  done,  as  if  nothing  should 
be  done.  We  are  expert  eyes,  asked  to  point 
the  way;  and  all  that  we  report  is  that  there 
is  nothing  to  see,  and  nowhere  to  go.  We  are 
without  even  a  partial  sense  of  the  awful  responsi- 
bility of  intelligence. 

It  is  time  we  put  this  problem  of  knowledge, 
even  the  problem  of  the  validity  of  knowledge, 
into  the  hands  of  science.  How  we  come  to 
know,  what  the  process  of  knowledge  is,  what 
"truth"  is,  —  all  these  are  questions  of  fact; 
they  are  problems  for  the  science  of  psychology, 


220      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

they  are  not  problems  for  philosophy.  This  con- 
tinual sharpening  of  the  knife,  as  Lotze  put  it, 
becomes  tiresome  —  almost  pathetic  —  if,  after 
all,  there  is  no  cutting  done.  Like  Faust,  who 
found  himself  when,  blinded  by  the  sun,  he  turned 
his  face  to  the  earth,  so  we  shall  have  to  forget 
our  epistemological  heaven  and  remember  mother 
earth ;  we  shall  have  to  give  up  our  delightful 
German  puzzles  and  play  our  living  part  in  the 
flow  of  social  purpose.  Philosophers  must  once 
more  learn  to  live. 

To  make  such  a  demand  for  a  new  direction  of 
philosophy  to  life  is  after  all  only  a  development 
of  pragmatism,  turning  that  doctrine  of  action  as 
the  test  and  significance  of  thought  to  uses  not 
so  individual  as  those  in  which  William  James 
found  its  readiest  application.  If  philosophy  has 
meaning,  it  must  be  as  life  become  aware  of  its 
purposes  and  possibilities,  it  must  be  as  life  cross- 
examining  life  for  the  sake  of  life ;  it  must  be  as 
specialized  foresight  for  the  direction  of  social 
movement,  as  reconstructive  intelligence  in  con- 
scious evolution.  Man  finds  himself  caught  in  a 
flux  of  change ;  he  studies  the  laws  operating  in 
the  flux;  studying,  he  comes  to  understand; 
understanding,  he  comes  to  control ;  controlling, 
he  comes  face  to  face  with  the  question  of  all 
questions,  For  what?  Where  does  he  wish  to  go, 
what  does  he  want  to  be?  It  is  then  that  man 
puts  his  whole  experience  before  him  in  synthetic 
test ;   then  that  he  gropes  for  meanings,  searches 


THE   RECONSTRUCTIVE    FUNCTION       221 

for  values,  struggles  to  see  and  define  his  course 
and  goal;  then  that  he  becomes  philosopher. 
Consider  these  questions  of  goal  and  course  as 
questions  asked  by  a  society,  and  the  social  func- 
tion of  philosophy  appears.  Science  enlightens 
means,  philosophy  must  enlighten  ends.  Science 
informs,  philosophy  must  form.  A  philosopher 
is  a  man  who  remakes  himself ;  the  social  function 
of  philosophy  is  to  remake  society. 

Have  we  yet  felt  the  full  zest  of  that  brave  dis- 
covery of  the  last  century,  —  that  purpose  is  not 
in  things  but  in  us?  What  a  declaration  of  in- 
dependence there  is  in  that  simple  phrase,  what 
liberation  of  a  fettered  thought  to  dare  all  ven- 
tures of  creative  endeavor !  Here  at  last  is  man's 
coming-of-age !  Well :  now  that  we  have  won 
this  freedom,  what  shall  we  do  with  it?  That 
is  the  question  which  freedom  begets,  often  as  its 
Frankenstein ;  for  unless  freedom  makes  for  life, 
freedom  dies.  Once  our  sloth  and  cowardice 
might  have  pleaded  the  uselessness  of  effort  in  a 
world  where  omnipotent  purpose  lay  outside  of 
us,  superimposed  and  unchangeable;  now  that 
we  can  believe  that  divinity  is  in  ourselves,  that 
purpose  and  guidance  are  through  us,  we  can  no 
longer  shirk  the  question  of  reconstruction.  The 
world  is  ours  to  do  with  what  we  can  and  will. 
Once  we  believed  in  the  unchangeable  environ- 
ment —  that  new  ogre  that  succeeded  to  the 
Absolute  —  and  (as  became  an  age  of  laissez- 
faire)  we  thought  that  wisdom  lay  in  meeting  all 


222      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

its  demands ;  now  we  know  that  environments 
can  be  remade;  and  we  face  the  question,  How 
shall  we  remake  ours? 

This  is  preeminently  a  problem  in  philosophy ; 
it  is  a  question  of  values.  If  the  world  is  to  be 
remade,  it  will  have  to  be  under  the  guidance  of 
philosophy. 

Ill 

Philosophy  as  Mediator  between  Science  and  Statesmanship 

But  why  philosophy  ?  —  some  one  asks.  Why 
will  not  science  do?  Philosophy  dreams,  while 
one  by  one  the  sciences  which  she  nursed  steal 
away  from  her  and  go  down  into  the  world 
of  fact  and  achievement.  Why  should  not 
science  be  called  upon  to  guide  us  into  a  better 
world  ? 

Because  science  becomes  more  and  more  a  frag- 
mentated  thing,  with  ever  less  coordination,  ever 
less  sense  of  the  whole.  Our  industrial  system 
has  forced  division  of  labor  here,  as  in  the  manual 
trades,  almost  to  the  point  of  idiocy :  let  a  man 
seek  to  know  everything  about  something,  and 
he  will  soon  know  nothing  about  anything  else; 
efficiency  will  swallow  up  the  man.  Because  of 
this  shredded  science  we  have  great  zoologists 
talking  infantile  patriotism  about  the  war,  and 
great  electricians  who  fill  sensational  sheets  with 
details  of  their  trips  to  heaven.  We  live  in  a 
world  where  thought  breaks  into  pieces,  and  co- 


THE   RECONSTRUCTIVE   FUNCTION       223 

ordination  ebbs;  we  flounder  into  a  chaos  of 
hatred  and  destruction  because  synthetic  think- 
ing is  not  in  fashion. 

Consider,  for  example,  the  problem  of  monop- 
oly :  we  ask  science  what  we  are  to  do  here ; 
why  is  it  that  after  we  have  listened  to  the  econo- 
mist, and  the  historian,  and  the  lawyer,  and  the 
psychologist,  we  are  hardly  better  off  than 
before?  Because  each  of  these  men  speaks  in 
ignorance  of  what  the  others  have  discovered. 
We  must  find  some  way  of  making  these  men 
acquainted  with  one  another  before  they  can 
become  really  useful  to  large  social  purposes; 
we  must  knock  their  heads  together.  We  want 
more  uniters  and  coordinators,  less  analyzers 
and  accumulators.  Specialization  is  making  the 
philosopher  a  social  necessity  of  the  very  first 
importance. 

This  does  not  mean  that  we  must  put  the  state 
into  the  hands  of  the  epistemologists.  Hardly. 
The  type  of  philosopher  who  must  be  produced 
will  be  a  man  too  close  to  life  to  spend  much  time 
on  merely  analytical  problems.  He  will  feel  the 
call  of  action,  and  will  automatically  reject  all 
knowledge  that  does  not  point  to  deeds.  The 
essential  feature  of  him  will  be  grasp :  he  will 
have  his  net  fixed  for  the  findings  of  those  sciences 
which  have  to  do,  not  with  material  reconstruc- 
tions, but  with  the  discovery  of  the  secrets  of 
human  nature.  He  will  know  the  essentials  of 
biology  and  psychology,  of  sociology  and  history, 


224      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

of  economics  and  politics ;  in  him  these  long- 
divorced  sciences  will  meet  again  and  make 
one  another  fertile  once  more.  He  will  busy 
himself  with  Mendel  and  Freud,  Sumner  and 
Veblen,  and  will  scandalously  neglect  the  Abso- 
lute. He  will  study  the  needs  and  exigencies  of 
his  time,  he  will  consider  the  Utopias  men  make, 
he  will  see  in  them  the  suggestive  pseudo- 
podia  of  political  theory,  and  will  learn  from 
them  what  men  at  last  desire.  He  will  sober 
the  vision  with  fact,  and  find  a  focus  for  im- 
mediate striving.  With  this  focus  he  will  be 
able  to  coordinate  his  own  thinking,  to  point 
the  nose  of  science  to  a  goal ;  science  becom- 
ing thereby  no  longer  inventive  and  instructive 
merely,  but  preventive  and  constructive.  And 
so  fortified  and  unified  he  will  preach  his  gospel, 
talking  not  to  students  about  God,  but  to  states- 
men about  men. 

For  we  come  again  —  ever  and  ever  again  —  to 
Plato :  unless  wisdom  and  practical  ability,  phi- 
losophy and  statesmanship,  can  be  more  closely 
bound  together  than  the}'  are,  there  will  be  no 
lessening  of  human  misery.  Think  of  the  learn- 
ing of  scientists  and  the  ignorance  of  politicians ! 
You  see  all  these  agitated,  pompous  men,  making 
laws  at  the  rate  of  some  ten  thousand  a  year; 
you  see  those  quiet,  unheard  of,  underpaid  seekers 
in  the  laboratories  of  the  world ;  unless  you  can 
bring  these  two  groups  together  through  coordi- 
nation and  direction,  your  society  will  stand  still 


THE   RECONSTRUCTIVE    FUNCTION       225 

forever,  however  much  it  moves.  Philosophy 
must  take  hold ;  it  must  become  the  social  direc- 
tion of  science,  it  must  become,  strange  to  say, 
applied  science. 

We  stand  to-day  in  social  science  where  Bacon 
stood  in  natural  science :  we  seek  a  method  first 
for  the  elucidation  of  causes,  and  second  for  the 
transformation,  in  the  light  of  this  knowledge,  of 
man's  environment  and  man.  "We  live  in  the 
stone  age  of  political  science,"  says  Lester  Ward; 
"in  politics  we  are  still  savages."  x  Our  political 
movements  are  conceived  in  impulse  and  de- 
veloped in  emotion ;  they  end  in  fission  and  frag- 
mentation because  there  is  no  thought  behind 
them.  Who  will  supply  thinking  to  these  in- 
stincts, direction  to  this  energy,  light  to  this 
wasted  heat  ?  Our  young  men  talk  only  of  ideals, 
our  politicians  only  of  fact ;  who  will  interpret  to 
the  one  the  language  of  the  other?  What  is  it, 
too,  that  statesmen  need  if  not  that  saving  sense 
of  the  whole  which  makes  philosophy,  and  which 
philosophy  makes?  Just  as  philosophy  without 
statesmanship  is  —  let  us  say  —  epistemology, 
so  statesmanship  without  philosophy  is  —  Ameri- 
can politics.  The  function  of  the  philosopher, 
then,  is  to  do  the  listening  to  to-day's  science, 
and  then  to  do  the  thinking  for  to-morrow's 
statesmanship.  The  philosophy  of  an  age  should 
be  the  organized  foresight  of  that  age,  the  inter- 
preter of  the  future  to  the  present.     "Selection 

1  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  March,  1905,  p.  645. 


226      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

adapts  man  to  yesterday's  conditions,  not  to 
to-day's";1  the  organized  foresight  of  conscious 
evolution  will  adapt  man  to  the  conditions  of  to- 
morrow. And  an  ounce  of  foresight  is  worth  a 
ton  of  morals. 

1  Ross,  Social  Control,  New  York,  1906,  p.  9. 


CHAPTER  III 

ORGANIZED   INTELLIGENCE 

I 
The  Need 

Intelligence  is  organized  experience ;  but  in- 
telligence itself  must  be  organized.  Consider  the 
resources  of  the  unused  intelligence  of  the  world ; 
intelligence  potential  but  undeveloped ;  intelli- 
gence developed  but  isolated  ;  intelligence  allowed 
to  waste  itself  in  purely  personal  pursuits,  un- 
asked to  enter  into  cooperation  for  larger  ends. 
Consider  the  Platos  fretting  in  exile  while  petty 
politicians  rule  the  world;  consider  Montaigne, 
and  Hobbes,  and  Hume,  and  Carlyle,  and  the 
thousand  other  men  whose  genius  was  left  to  grow 
—  or  die  —  in  solitude  or  starvation ;  consider 
the  vast  number  of  university-trained  minds  who 
are  permitted,  for  lack  of  invitation  and  organized 
facilities,  to  slip  into  the  world  of  profit  and  loss 
and  destructively  narrow  intent;  consider  the 
expert  ability  in  all  lines  which  can  be  found  in 
the  faculties  of  the  world,  and  which  goes  to 
training  an  infinitesimal  fraction  of  the  com- 
munity.   The  thought  of  university  graduates, 

227 


228      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

of  university  faculties,  of  university-trained  in- 
vestigators, has  had  a  rapidly  growing  influence 
in  the  last  ten  years  in  America ;  and  because  it 
is  an  influence  due  to  enlightenment  it  is  funda- 
mentally an  influence  for  "good."  It  was  this 
influence  that  showed  when  President  Wilson 
said  that  the  eight-hour  day  was  demanded  by 
the  informed  opinion  of  the  time.  The  sources 
of  such  influence  have  merely  been  touched ; 
they  are  deep ;  we  must  find  a  way  to  make  in- 
formed opinion  more  articulate  and  powerful. 
"The  most  valuable  knowledge  consists  of 
methods,"  said  Nietzsche  ;  l  and  the  most  valuable 
methods  are  methods  of  organization,  whether  of 
data  or  of  men.  Organization's  the  thing.  Eco- 
nomic forces  are  organized ;  the  forces  of  intelli- 
gence are  not.  To  organize  intelligence  ;  that  is 
surely  one  method  of  approach  to  the  social 
problem ;  and  what  if,  indeed,  it  be  the  very 
heart  and  substance  of  the  social  problem? 

Now  a  very  easy  way  of  making  the  propounder 
of  such  an  organization  feel  unusually  modest  is 
to  ask  him  that  little  trouble-making  question, 
How?  To  answer  that  would  be  to  answer 
almost  everything  that  can  be  answered.  Here 
are  opera  basilica  again  !  —  for  what  are  we  doing, 
after  all,  but  trying  to  take  Francis  Bacon  seri- 
ously? Of  course  the  difficulty  in  organizing  in- 
telligence is  how  to  know  who  are  intelligent,  and 
how  to  get  enough  people  to  agree  with  you  that 

»  Will  to  Power,  §  469. 


ORGANIZED    INTELLIGENCE  229 

you  know.  If  each  man's  self-valuation  were 
accepted,  our  organization  would  be  rather  bulky. 
Are  there  any  men  very  widely  recognized  as  in- 
telligent, who  could  be  used  as  the  nucleus  of  an 
organization?  There  are  individual  men  so  rec- 
ognized, —  Edison,  for  example,  and,  strange  to 
say,  one  or  two  men  who  by  accident  are  holding 
political  office.  But  these  are  stray  individuals ; 
are  there  any  groups  whose  average  of  intelligence 
is  highly  rated  by  a  large  portion  of  the  com- 
munity ?  There  are.  Physicians  are  so  rated ; 
so  much  so  that  by  popular  usage  they  have  won 
almost  a  monopoly  on  the  once  more  widely  used 
term  doctor.  University  professors  are  highly 
rated.  Let  us  take  the  physicians  and  the  pro- 
fessors ;  here  is  a  nucleus  of  recognized  intelligence. 
There  are  objections,  here,  of  course  ;  some  one 
urges  that  many  physicians  are  quacks,  another 
that  professors  are  rated  as  intelligent,  but  only 
in  an  impractical  sort  of  way.  Perhaps  we  shall 
find  some  scheme  for  eliminating  the  quacks; 
but  the  professors  present  a  difficult  problem. 
It  is  true  that  they  suffer  from  intellectualism, 
academitis,  overfondness  for  theories,  and  other 
occupational  diseases ;  it  is  true  that  the  same 
people  who  stand  in  awe  of  the  very  word  pro- 
fessor would  picture  the  article  indicated  by  the 
word  as  a  thin,  round-shouldered,  be-spectacled 
ninny,  incapable  of  finding  his  way  alone  through 
city  streets,  and  so  immersed  in  the  stars  that  he 
is  sooner  or  later  submerged  in  a  well.     But  what 


230      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PEOBLEM 

if  this  quality  of  detachment,  of  professorial 
calm,  be  just  one  of  the  qualities  needed  for  the 
illumination  of  our  social  problem?  Perhaps  we 
have  too  much  emotion  in  these  questions,  and 
need  the  colder  light  of  the  man  who  is  trained 
to  use  his  "head"  and  not  his  "heart."  Perhaps 
the  most  useful  thing  in  the  world  for  our  purpose 
is  this  terribly  dispassionate,  coldly  scrutinizing 
professor.  We  need  men  as  impartial  and  clear- 
eyed  as  men  come ;  and  whatever  a  professor 
may  say,  yet  he  sees  his  field  more  clearly  and 
impartially  than  any  other  group  of  men  what- 
ever.    Let  the  professors  stay. 

And  so  we  have  our  physicians  and  our  profes- 
sors, —  say  all  physicians  and  professors  who 
have  taught  or  practised  three  years  in  institu- 
tions, or  as  the  graduates  of  institutions,  of  recog- 
nized standing.     And  now  let  us  dream  our  dream. 

II 

The  Organization  of  Intelligence 

These  men,  through  meetings  and  correspond- 
ence, organize  themselves  into  a  "Society  for 
Social  Research";  they  begin  at  once  to  look 
for  an  "inspired  millionaire"  to  finance  the  move- 
ment for  six  months  or  so ;  they  advertise  them- 
selves diligently  in  the  press,  and  make  known 
their  intention  to  get  together  the  best  brains  of 
the  country  to  study  the  facts  and  possibilities 
of  the  social  problem.     And  then  —  a  difficult 


ORGANIZED    INTELLIGENCE  231 

point  —  they  face  the  task  of  arranging  some 
more  or  less  impersonal  method  of  deciding  who 
are  the  intelligent  people  and  who  not.  They  ask 
themselves  just  what  kind  of  information  a  man 
should  be  expected  to  have,  to  fit  him  for  com- 
petent handling  of  social  questions ;  and  after 
long  discussions  they  conclude  that  such  a  man 
should  be  well  trained  in  one  —  and  acquainted 
with  the  general  findings  of  the  others  —  of  what 
we  may  call  the  social  disciplines :  biology,  psy- 
chology, sociology,  history,  economics,  law,  poli- 
tics, philosophy,  and  perhaps  more.  They  formu- 
late a  long  and  varied  test  for  the  discovery  of 
fitness  in  these  fields  ;  and  they  arrange  that  every 
university  in  the  country  shall  after  plentiful 
advertisement  and  invitation  to  all  and  sundry, 
give  these  tests,  and  pay  the  expenses  incurred  by 
any  needy  candidate  who  shall  emerge  successful 
from  the  trial.  In  this  way  men  whose  studies 
have  been  private,  and  unadorned  with  academic 
degree,  are  to  find  entrance  to  the  Society. 

It  is  recognized  that  the  danger  of  such  a  test 
lies  in  the  premium  which  it  sets  on  the  bookish 
as  against  the  practical  man :  on  the  man  whose 
knowledge  has  come  to  him  in  the  classroom  or 
the  study,  as  against  the  man  who  has  won  his 
knowledge  just  by  living  face  to  face  with  life. 
There  are  philosophers  who  have  never  heard  of 
Kant,  and  psychologists  who  have  been  Freud- 
ians for  decades  without  having  ever  read  a  book. 
A  society  recruited  by  such  a  test  will  be  devoid 


232      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

of  artists  and  poets,  may  finally  eliminate  all  but 
fact-gathering  dryasdusts,  and  so  end  deservedly 
in  nothing.  And  yet  some  test  there  must  be, 
to  indicate,  however  crudely,  one's  fitness  or  un- 
fitness to  take  part  in  this  work ;  the  alternative 
would  be  the  personal  choice  of  the  initial  few, 
whose  prejudices  and  limitations  would  so  become 
the  constitution  and  by-laws  of  the  society. 
Perhaps,  too,  some  way  may  appear  of  using  the 
artists  and  poets,  and  the  genius  who  knows  no 
books. 

Well :  the  tests  are  given ;  the  original  nucleus 
of  physicians  and  professors  submit  themselves 
to  these  tests,  and  some,  failing,  are  eliminated ; 
other  men  come,  from  all  fields  of  work,  and  from 
them  a  number  survive  the  ordeal  and  pass  into 
the  Society.  So  arises  a  body  of  say  5000  men, 
divided  into  local  groups  but  working  in  unison 
so  far  as  geographical  separateness  will  permit ; 
and  to  them  now  come,  impressed  with  their 
earnestness,  a  wealthy  man,  who  agrees  to  finance 
the  Society  for  such  time  as  may  be  needed  to 
test  its  usefulness. 

Now  what  does  our  Society  do  ? 

It  seeks  information.  That,  and  not  a  pro- 
gramme, is  the  fruitful  beginning  of  reform. 
"Men  are  willing  to  investigate  only  the  small 
things  of  life,"  says  Samuel  Butler ;  this  Society 
for  Social  Research  is  prepared  and  resolved  to 
investigate  anything  that  has  vital  bearing  on  the 
social  problem ;  it  stands  ready  to  make  enemies, 


ORGANIZED    INTELLIGENCE  233 

ready  to  soil  its  hands.  It  appoints  committees  to 
gather  and  formulate  all  that  biologists  can  tell 
of  human  origin  and  the  innate  impulses  of  men ; 
all  that  psychology  in  its  varied  branches  can 
tell  of  human  behavior ;  all  that  sociology  knows 
of  how  and  why  human  societies  and  institutions 
rise  and  fall ;  all  that  medicine  can  tell  of  social 
ills  and  health ;  it  appoints  committees  to  go 
through  all  science  with  the  loadstone  of  the 
social  purpose,  picking  up  this  fact  here  and  that 
one  there ;  committees  to  study  actual  and  pro- 
posed forms  of  government,  administrative  and 
electoral  methods ;  committees  to  investigate 
marriage,  eugenics,  prostitution,  poverty,  and  the 
thousand  other  aspects  and  items  of  the  social 
problem ;  committees  to  call  for  and  listen  to 
responsible  expressions  of  every  kind  of  opinion ; 
committees  to  examine  and  analyze  social  experi- 
ments, profit-sharing  plans,  Oneida  communi- 
ties ;  even  a  committee  on  Utopia,  before  which 
persons  with  schemes  and  'isms  and  perfect  cities 
in  their  heads  may  freely  preach  their  gospel. 
In  short  this  Society  becomes  the  organized  eye 
and  ear  of  the  community,  ready  and  eager  to 
seek  out  all  the  facts  of  human  life  and  business 
that  may  enlighten  human  will. 

And  having  found  the  facts  it  publishes  them. 
Its  operations  show  real  earnestness,  sincerity, 
and  ability;  and  in  consequence  it  wins  such 
prestige  that  its  reports  find  much  heralding, 
synopsis,  and  comment  in  the  press.     But  in  addi- 


234      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE   SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

tion  to  that  it  buys,  for  the  first  day  of  every 
month,  a  half-page  of  space  in  several  of  the  more 
widely  circulated  periodicals  and  journals  of  the 
country,  and  publishes  its  findings  succinctly  and 
intelligibly.  It  gives  full  references  for  all  its 
statements  of  fact ;  it  makes  verification  possible 
for  all  doubters  and  deniers.  It  includes  in  each 
month's  report  a  reliable  statement  of  the  year's 
advances  in  some  one  of  the  social  disciplines,  so 
that  its  twelve  reports  in  any  year  constitute  a 
record  of  the  socially  vital  scientific  findings  of 
the  year.  It  limits  itself  strictly  to  verifiable  in- 
formation, and  challenges  demonstration  of  hu- 
manly avoidable  partiality.  And  it  takes  great 
care  that  its  reports  are-  couched  not  in  learned 
and  technical  language  but  in  such  phraseology 
as  will  be  intelligible  to  the  graduates  of  an  aver- 
age grammar  school.     That  is  central. 

Ill 

Information  of  Panacea 

Without  some  such  means  of  getting  and  spread- 
ing information  there  is  no  hope  for  fundamental 
social  advance.  We  have  agreed,  have  we  not, 
that  to  make  men  happier  and  more  capable  we 
must  divert  their  socially  injurious  impulses  into 
beneficent  channels ;  that  we  can  do  this  only 
by  studying  those  impulses  and  controlling  the 
stimuli  which  arouse  them  ;  that  we  can  control 
those  stimuli  only  by  studying  the  varied  factors 


ORGANIZED    INTELLIGENCE  235 

of  the  environment  and  the  means  of  changing 
them ;  in  short,  that  at  the  bottom  of  the  direc- 
tion of  impulse  lies  the  necessity  of  knowledge,  of 
information  spread  to  all  who  care  to  receive  it. 
Autocracy  may  improve  the  world  without  spread- 
ing enlightenment ;  but  democracy  cannot.  De- 
lenda  est  ignorantia.1 

This,  after  all,  is  a  plan  for  the  democratiza- 
tion of  aristocracy;  it  is  Plato  translated  into 
America.  It  utilizes  superior  intelligence  and 
gives  it  voice,  but  sanctions  no  change  that  has 
not  received  the  free  consent  of  the  community. 
It  gives  the  aristocracy  of  intellect  the  influence 
and  initiative  which  crude  democracy  frustrates ; 
but  it  avoids  the  corruption  that  usually  goes 
with  power,  by  making  this  influence  work 
through  the  channels  of  persuasion  rather  than 
compulsion/"  It  counteracts  the  power  of  wealth 
to  disseminate  partisan  views  through  news-items 
and  editorials,  and  relies  on  fact  to  get  the  better 
at  last  of  double-leaded  prejudice.  It  rests  on 
the  faith  that  lies  will  out. 

Would  the  mass  of  the  people  listen  to  such 
reports  ?  Consider,  first,  the  repute  that  attaches 
to  the  professorial  title.  Let  a  man  write  even 
the  sorriest  nonsense  but  sign  himself  as  one  of 
the  faculty  of  some  responsible  institution,  and 
he  will  find  a  hearing ;  the  reader,  perhaps,  need 
not  go  far  to  find  an  example.  In  recent  indus- 
trial and  political  issues  the  pronouncements  of 

1  Barker,  Political  Thought  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  p.  80. 


236      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

a  few  professors  carried  very  great  weight ;  and 
there  are  some  modest  purveyors  of  so  supposedly 
harmless  a  thing  as  philosophy  whose  voice  is 
feared  by  all  interests  that  prosper  in  the  dark. 
Will  the  combined  reputation  of  the  most  en- 
lightened men  in  the  country  mean  less?  A 
report  published  by  this  Society  for  Social  Re- 
search will  mean  that  a  large  body  of  intelligent 
men  have  from  their  number  appointed  three  or 
five  or  ten  to  find  the  facts  of  a  certain  situation 
or  dispute ;  these  appointed  men  will,  if  they 
report  hastily,  or  carelessly,  or  dishonestly,  impair 
the  repute  of  all  their  fellows  in  the  Society; 
they  will  take  care,  then,  and  will  probably  find 
honesty  as  good  a  policy  as  some  of  us  pretend  it 
to  be.  With  every  additional  report  so  guarded 
from  defect  the  repute  of  the  society  will  grow 
until  it  becomes  the  most  powerful  intellectual 
force  in  the  world. 

When  one  reflects  how  many  pages  of  misrep- 
resentation were  printed  in  the  papers  of  only 
one  city  in  the  presidential  campaign  of  1916, 
and  then  imagines  what  would  have  been  the 
effect  of  a  mere  statement  of  facts  on  both  sides, 
—  the  records  of  the  candidates  and  the  parties, 
their  acknowledged  connections,  friends  and 
enemies,  their  expressed  principles  and  pro- 
grammes, the  facts  about  the  tariff,  the  German 
issue,  international  law,  the  railway-brotherhood 
dispute,  and  so  forth  —  one  begins  to  appreciate 
the  importance  of  information.     After  the  initial 


ORGANIZED    INTELLIGENCE  237 

and  irrevocable  differences  of  original  nature 
nothing  is  so  vital  as  the  spread  of  enlighten- 
ment ;  and  nothing  offers  itself  so  well  to 
organized  effort.  Eugenics  is  weak  because  it 
has  no  thought-out  programme ;  'isms  rise  and 
fall  because  people  are  not  informed.  Let  who 
can,  improve  the  native  qualities  of  men ;  but 
that  aside,  the  most  promising  plan  is  the 
dissemination  of  fact. 

Such  a  society  for  research  would  be  a  sort  of 
social  consciousness,  a  "mind  of  the  race."  It 
would  make  social  planning  possible  for  the  first 
time  ;  it  would  make  history  conscious.  It  would 
look  ahead  and  warn ;  it  would  point  the  nose  of 
the  community  to  unwelcome  but  important  facts  ; 
it  would  examine  into  such  statements  as  that  of 
Sir  William  Ramsay,  that  England's  coal  fields 
will  be  exhausted  in  one  hundred  and  seventy- 
five  years ;  and  its  warnings,  backed  by  the  pres- 
tige of  its  expert  information,  would  perhaps  avert 
the  ravages  of  social  waste  and  private  greed. 
Nature,  said  Lester  Ward,  is  a  spendthrift, 
man  an  economizer.  But  economy  means  pre- 
vision, and  social  economy  means  organized 
provision.  Here  would  be  not  agitation,  not 
propaganda,  not  moralizing,  but  only  clarifica- 
tion;  these  men  would  be  "merchants  of  light," 
simply  giving  information  so  that  what  men 
should  do  they  might  do  knowingly  and  not 
in  the  dark. 

Indeed,  if  one  can  clarify  one  need  not  agitate. 


238      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

Just  to  state  facts  is  the  most  terrible  thing  that 
can  be  done  to  an  injustice.  Sermons  and 
stump-speeches  stampede  the  judgment  for  a 
moment,  but  the  sound  of  their  perorations 
still  lingers  in  the  air  when  reaction  comes. 
Fact  has  this  advantage  over  rhetoric,  that 
time  strengthens  the  one  and  weakens  the 
other.  Tell  the  truth  and  time  will  be  your 
eloquence. 

Let  us  suppose  that  our  Society  has  existed 
some  three  years  ;  let  us  suppose  that  on  the  first 
day  of  every  month  it  has  spread  through  the 
press  simple  reports  of  its  investigations,  simple 
accounts  of  socially  significant  work  in  science, 
and  simple  statements  of  fact  about  the  economic 
and  political  issues  of  the  day;  let  us  suppose 
that  by  far  the  greater  part  of  these  reports  have 
been  conscientious  and  accurate  and  clear.  Very 
well :  in  the  course  of  these  three  years  a  large 
number  of  mentally  alert  people  all  over  the  coun- 
try will  have  developed  the  habit  of  reading  these 
monthly  reports ;  they  will  look  forward  to  them, 
they  will  attach  significance  to  them,  they  will 
herald  them  as  events,  almost  as  decisions.  In 
any  question  of  national  policy  its  statements 
will  influence  thousands  and  thousands  of  the  more 
independent  minds.  Let  us  calculate  the  number 
of  people  who,  in  these  United  States,  would  be 
reached  by  such  reports ;  let  us  say  the  reports 
are  printed  in  three  or  four  New  York  dailies, 
having  a  total  circulation  of  one  million  ;  in  other 


ORGANIZED    INTELLIGENCE  239 

dailies  throughout  the  country  totalling  some  five 
million  circulation ;  and  in  one  or  more  weeklies 
or  monthlies  with  a  large  or  a  select  circulation. 
One  may  perhaps  say  that  out  of  the  seven  or 
eight  million  people  so  reached  (mostly  adult 
males),  five  per  cent  will  be  so  influenced  by  the 
increasing  prestige  of  the  Society  that  they  will 
read  the  reports.  Of  these  four  hundred  thousand 
readers  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  three  hun- 
dred thousand  will  be  voters,  and  not  only  voters 
but  men  of  influence  among  their  fellows.  These 
men  will  each  of  them  be  a  medium  through 
which  the  facts  reported  will  be  spread ;  it  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  the  number  of  American 
voters  influenced  directly  or  indirectly  by  these 
reports  will  reach  to  a  million.1  Now  imagine 
the  influence  of  this  million  of  voters  on  a  presi- 
dential election.  Their  very  existence  would  be 
a  challenge  ;  candidates  would  have  them  in  mind 
when  making  promises  and  criticisms ;  parties 
would  think  of  them  when  formulating  policies 
and  drawing  up  platforms ;  editors  would  beware 
of  falling  into  claptrap  and  deceit  for  fear  of  these 
million  men  armed  with  combustible  fact.  It 
would  mean  such  an  elevation  of  political  discus- 
sion and  political  performance  as  democracy  has 
never  yet  produced  ;  such  an  elevation  as  democ- 
racy must  produce  or  die. 

1  Perhaps  this  million  could  be  reached  more  surely  and 
economically  through  direct  pamphlet-publication  by  the 
Society. 


240      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE   SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

IV 

Sex,  Art,  and  Play  in  Social  Reconstruction 

So  far  our  imagined  Society  has  done  no  more 
than  to  seek  and  give  information.  It  has,  it  is 
true,  listened  to  propagandists  and  Utopians,  and 
has  published  extracts  from  their  testimony  ;  but 
even  this  has  been  not  to  agitate  but  to  inform ; 
that  such  and  such  opinions  are  held  by  such 
and  such  men,  and  by  such  and  such  a  number 
of  men,  is  also  a  point  of  information.  Merely 
to  state  facts  is  the  essential  thing,  and  the  ex- 
tremely effective  thing.  But  now  there  are  cer- 
tain functions  which  such  a  Society  might  per- 
form beyond  the  giving  of  facts  —  functions  that 
involve  personal  attitudes  and  interpretations. 
It  may  be  possible  for  our  Society  to  take  on  these 
functions  without  detracting  from  the  trust  re- 
posed in  its  statements  of  fact.  What  are  these 
functions  ? 

First  of  all,  the  stimulation  of  artistic  produc- 
tion, and  the  extension  of  artistic  appreciation. 
Our  Society,  which  is  composed  of  rather  staid 
men,  themselves  not  peculiarly  fitted  to  pass 
judgment  outside  the  field  of  science,  will  invite, 
let  us  say,  twenty  of  the  most  generally  and 
highly  valued  of  English  and  American  authors 
to  form  themselves  into  a  Committee  on  Literary 
Awards,  as  a  branch  of  the  Society  for  Social 
Research.  Imagine  Thomas  Hardy  and  George 
Bernard  Shaw  and  H.  G.  Wells  and  John  Gals- 


ORGANIZED    INTELLIGENCE  241 

worthy  and  Rudyard  Kipling  and  John  Masefield 
and  George  Moore  and  Joseph  Conrad  and  W.  D. 
Howells  and  Theodore  Dreiser  and  many  more, 
telling  the  world  every  month,  in  individual  in- 
stalments, their  judgment  on  current  fiction, 
drama,  poetry,  English  literature  in  general ; 
imagine  the  varied  judgments  printed  with  synop- 
tic coordination  of  the  results  as  a  way  of  fixing 
the  standing  of  a  book  in  the  English  literary 
world ;  and  judge  of  the  stimulus  that  would  re- 
side in  lists  signed  by  such  names.  Imagine 
another  group  of  men,  the  literary  elite  of  France, 
making  briefer  reports  on  French  literature  ;  and 
other  groups  in  Germany,  Russia,  Italy,  Spain, 
Scandinavia;  imagine  the  world  getting  every 
month  the  judgment  of  Anatole  France  and 
Romain  Rolland  and  Gerhardt  Hauptmann  and 
Anton  Tchekov  and  Georg  Brandes  on  the  current 
literature  of  their  peoples ;  imagine  them  making 
lists,  too,  of  the  best  books  in  all  their  literatures ; 
imagine  eager  young  men  and  women  poring 
over  these  conflicting  lists,  discussing  them, 
making  lists  of  their  own,  and  getting  guidance 
so.  And  to  the  literary  lists  add  monthly  reports, 
by  a  committee  of  the  Society  itself,  on  the  best 
books  in  the  various  fields  of  science.  Finally, 
let  the  artists  speak,  —  painters  and  sculptors 
and  all ;  let  them  say  where  excellence  has  dwelt 
this  month  in  their  respective  fields.  There  are 
hundreds  of  thousands  who  hunger  for  such  guid- 
ance as  this  plan  would  give.     There  are  young 

B 


242      PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    PROBLEM 

people  who  flounder  about  hopelessly  because 
they  find  no  guidance ;  young  people  who  are 
easily  turned  to  fine  work  by  the  stimulus  of 
responsible  judgment,  and  as  easily  lapse  into 
the  banalities  of  popular  fiction  and  popular 
magazines  when  this  guiding  stimulus  fails  to 
come.  There  are  thousands  of  people  who  would 
be  glad  to  pay  their  modest  contribution  to  the 
support  of  any  organization  that  would  manage 
to  get  such  direction  for  them.  Half  the  value 
of  a  university  course  lies  in  this,  that  the  teacher 
will  suggest  readings,  judge  books,  and  provide 
general  guidance  for  individual  work.  Perhaps 
the  most  valuable  kind  of  information  in  the  world 
is  that  which  guides  one  in  the  search  for  infor- 
mation. Such  guidance,  given  to  all  who  ask 
for  it,  would  go  far  to  save  us  from  the  mediocrity 
that  almost  stifles  our  national  life.1 

And  more ;  why  should  not  the  stimulation  be 
for  the  producers  as  well  as  for  the  consumers? 
Why  should  not  some  kind  of  award  be  made, 
say  every  six  months,  to  the  authors  adjudged 
best  in  their  lines  by  their  qualified  contempo- 
raries ?     Why  should  such  a  book  as  Jean  Chris- 

1  Some  students  —  e.g.,  Joseph  McCabe,  The  Tyranny  of 
Shams,  London,  1916,  p.  248  —  are  so  impressed  with  the  dan- 
gers lying  in  our  vast  production  of  written  trash  that  they 
favor  restricting  the  circulation  of  cheap  fiction  in  our  public 
libraries.  But  what  we  have  to  do  is  not  to  prohibit  the  evil 
but  to  encourage  the  good,  to  give  positive  stimulus  rather 
than  negative  prohibition.  People  hate  compulsion,  but  they 
grope  for  guidance. 


ORGANIZED   INTELLIGENCE  243 

tophe  or  The  Brothers  Karamazov  go  unheralded 
except  in  fragmentary  individual  ways?  Why 
not  reward  such  productions  with  a  substan- 
tial prize  ?  —  or,  if  that  be  impossible,  by  some 
presentation  of  certificate?  Even  a  "scrap  of 
paper"  would  go  a  long  way  to  stimulate  the 
writer  and  guide  the  reader.  But  why  should 
not  a  money  reward  be  possible?  If  rich  men 
will  pay  thousands  upon  thousands  for  the  (per- 
haps) original  works  of  dead  artists,  why  should 
they  not  turn  their  wealth  into  spiritual  gold  by 
helping  the  often  impecunious  writers  of  the 
living  day?  It  is  a  convenient  error  to  believe 
that  financial  aid  would  detract  from  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  creator :  it  would,  did  it  come 
from  men  rewarding  on  the  basis  of  their  own 
judgment ;  it  would  not  if  the  judgment  of  the 
world's  men  of  letters  should  be  taken  as  criterion. 
And  perhaps  fewer  Chattertons  and  Davidsons 
would  mar  the  history  of  literature  and  art. 

This  direction  of  attention  to  what  is  best  and 
greatest  in  the  work  of  our  age  is  a  matter  of 
deeper  moment  than  superficial  thought  can 
grasp.  If,  by  some  such  method,  the  meaning 
of  "success"  could  be  freed  from  monetary  im- 
plication and  attached  rather  to  excellence  in  art 
and  science,  the  change  would  have  almost  in- 
estimably far-reaching  results.  Men  worship 
money,  as  has  often  been  pointed  out,1  not  for 
its  own  sake,  nor  for  the  material  good  it  brings, 

1  E.g.,  by  G.  Lowes  Dickinson,  Justice  and  Liberty,  p.  133. 


244      PHILOSOPHY   AND    THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

but  for  the  prestige  of  success  that  goes  with  its 
"conspicuous  consumption";  let  the  artist  find 
more  appreciation  for  his  ability  than  the  captain 
of  industry  finds  for  his,  and  there  will  be  a  great 
release  of  energy  from  economic  exploitation  to 
creative  work  in  science,  literature,  and  art.  A 
large  part  of  the  stimuli  that  prompt  men  to 
exploit  their  fellows  will  be  gone ;  and  that 
richest  of  all  incentives  —  social  esteem  —  will 
go  to  produce  men  eager  to  contribute  to  the 
general  power  and  happiness  of  the  community.1 
The  art  impulse,  as  is  generally  believed,  is  a 
diversion  of  sex  energy.  An  organism  is  essen- 
tially not  a  food-getting  but  a  reproductive 
mechanism ;  the  food-getting  is  a  contributory 
incident  in  the  reproduction.  As  development 
proceeds  the  period  of  pregnancy  and  adolescence 
increases,  more  of  the  offspring  survive  to 
maturity,  large  broods,  litters,  or  families  be- 
come unnecessary,  and  more  and  more  of  the 
energy  that  was  sexual  slides  over  into  originally 
secondary  pursuits,  like  play  and  art.  At  the 
same  time  there  is  a  gradual  diminution  in  pug- 
nacity (which  was  another  factor  in  the  drama  of 
reproduction),  and  rivalry  in  games  and  arts  en- 
croaches more  and  more  on  the  emotional  field 
once  monopolized  by  strife  for  mates  and  food. 

1  Cf .  Russell,  Principles  of  Social  Reconstruction,  p.  236 : 
"The  supreme  principle,  both  in  politics  and  in  private  life, 
should  be  to  promote  all  that  is  creative,  and  so  to  diminish 
the  impulses  and  desires  that  center  round  possession." 


ORGANIZED    INTELLIGENCE  245 

The  game  —  a  sort  of  Hegelian  synthesis  of  hos- 
tility and  sociability  —  takes  more  and  more  the 
place  of  war,  and  artistic  creation  increasingly 
replaces  reproduction. 

If  all  this  is  anything  more  than  theoretic  skat- 
ing over  thin  sheets  of  fact,  it  means  that  one 
"way  out"  from  our  social  perplexities  lies  in 
the  provision  of  stronger  stimulus  to  creation  and 
recreation,  art  and  games.  It  is  a  serious  part  of 
the  social  planner's  work  to  find  some  way  of 
nourishing  the  art  impulse  wherever  it  appears, 
and  drawing  it  on  by  arranging  rewards  for  its 
productions.  And  again  we  shall  have  to  under- 
stand that  play  is  an  important  matter  in  a 
nation's  life ;  that  one  of  the  best  signs  for  the 
future  of  America  is  the  prevalence  of  healthy 
athleticism ;  and  that  an  attempt  to  widen  these 
sport  activities  to  greater  intersectional  and  inter- 
national scope  than  they  have  yet  attained  will 
get  at  some  of  the  roots  of  international  pugnacity. 
A  wise  government  would  be  almost  as  interested 
in  the  people's  games  as  in  their  schools,  and 
would  spend  millions  in  making  rivalry  absorb 
the  dangerous  energy  of  pugnacity.  Olympic 
games  should  not  be  Olympic  games,  occurring 
only  with  Olympiads ;  not  a  month  should  pass 
but  great  athletes,  selected  by  eliminative  tests 
from  every  part  of  every  country,  should  meet, 
now  here,  now  there,  to  match  brawn  and  wits 
in  the  friendly  enmity  of  games.  Let  men  know 
one  another  through  games,  and  they  will  not  for 


246      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

slight  reasons  pass  from  sportsmanship  to  that 
competitive  destruction  and  deceit  which  our  polit- 
ical Barnums  call  "the  defence  of  our  national 
honor." 


Education 

This  diversion  of  the  sexual  instinct  into  art 
and  games  (a  prophylactic  which  has  long  since 
been  applied  to  individuals,  and  awaits  applica- 
tion to  groups)  must  begin  in  the  early  days  of 
personal  development ;  so  that  our  Society  for 
Social  Research  would,  if  it  were  to  take  on  this 
task,  find  itself  inextricably  mixed  up  with  the 
vast  problem  of  educational  method  and  aim. 

Here  more  than  anywhere  one  hears  the  call 
for  enlightenment  and  sees  the  need  for  clarifica- 
tion. Here  is  an  abundance  of  'isms  and  a  dearth 
of  knowledge.  Most  teachers  use  methods  which 
they  themselves  consider  antiquated,  and  teach 
subjects  which  they  will  admit  not  one  in  a 
hundred  of  their  pupils  wili  ever  need  to  know. 
Curious  lessons  in  ethics  are  administered,  which 
are  seldom  practised  in  the  classroom,  and  make 
initiative  children  come  to  believe  that  com- 
mandment-breaking is  heroic.  Boys  and  girls 
bursting  with  vitality  and  the  splendid  exuber- 
ance of  youth  are  cramped  for  hours  into  set 
positions,  while  by  a  sort  of  water-cure  process 
knowledge  is  pumped  into  them  from  books 
duller  than  a  doctor's  dissertation  in  philosophy. 


ORGANIZED    INTELLIGENCE  247 

And  so  forth  :  the  indictment  against  our  schools 
has  been  drawn  up  a  thousand  times  and  in  a 
thousand  ways,  and  needs  no  reenforcement  here. 
But  though  we  have  indicted  we  have  not  made 
any  systematic  attempt  to  find  just  what  is 
wrong,  and  how,  and  where ;  and  what  may  be 
done  to  remedy  the  evil.  Experiments  have  been 
made,  but  their  bearings  and  results  have  been 
very  imperfectly  recorded. 

Suppose  now  that  our  Society  for  Social  Re- 
search should  appoint  a  great  Committee  on 
Education  to  hire  expert  investigators  and  make 
a  thorough  attempt  to  clarify  the  issues  in  educa- 
tion. Here  the  function  of  philosophy  should  be 
clear ;  for  the  educator  touches  at  almost  every 
point  those  problems  of  values,  individual  and 
social,  which  are  the  special  hunting-ground  of 
the  philosopher.  The  importance  of  psychology 
here  is  recognized,  but  the  importance  of  biology 
and  pathology  has  not  been  seen  in  fit  perspec- 
tive. Why  should  not  a  special  group  of  men 
be  set  aside  for  years,  if  necessary,  to  study  the 
applicability  of  the  several  sciences  to  educa- 
tion? Why  should  not  all  scientific  knowledge, 
so  far  as  it  touches  human  nature,  be  focused  on 
the  semi-darkness  in  which  the  educator  works? 

Two  special  problems  in  this  field  invite  re- 
search. One  concerns  the  effect,  on  national 
character  and  capacity,  of  a  system  of  education 
controlled  by  the  government.  The  point  was 
made  by  Spinoza,  as  may  be  remembered,  that  a 


248      PHILOSOPHY   AND    THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

government  will,  if  it  controls  the  schools,  aim 
to  restrain  rather  than  to  develop  the  energies  of 
men.  Kant  remarked  the  same  difficulty.  The 
function  of  education  in  the  eyes  of  a  dominant 
class  is  to  make  men  able  to  do  skilled  work  but 
unable  to  do  original  thinking  (for  all  original 
thinking  begins  with  destruction) ;  the  function  of 
education  in  the  eyes  of  a  government  is  to  teach 
men  that  eleventh  commandment  which  God  for- 
got to  give  to  Moses  :  thou  shalt  love  thy  country 
right  or  wrong.  All  this,  of  course,  requires 
some  marvellous  prestidigitation  of  the  truth,  as 
school  text-books  of  national  history  show.  The 
ignorant,  it  seems,  are  the  necessary  ballast  in 
the  ship  of  state. 

The  alternative  to  such  schools  seems  to  be  a 
return  to  private  education,  with  the  rich  man's 
son  getting  even  more  of  a  start  on  the  poor  boy 
than  he  gets  now.  Is  there  a  tertium  quid  here? 
Perhaps  this  is  one  point  which  a  resolute  effort 
to  get  the  facts  would  clarify.  What  does  such 
governmentally-regulated  education  do  to  the 
forces  of  personal  difference  and  initiative?  Will 
men  and  women  educated  in  such  a  way  produce 
their  maximum  in  art  and  thought  and  industry  ? 
Or  will  they  be  automata,  always  waiting  for  a 
push  ?  What  different  results  would  come  if  the 
nationally-owned  schools  were  to  confine  their 
work  absolutely  to  statements  of  fact,  presenta- 
tions of  science,  and  were  to  leave  "character- 
moulding"  and  lessons  in  ethics  to  private  per- 


ORGANIZED   INTELLIGENCE  249 

sons  or  institutions?  Then  at  least  each  parent 
might  corrupt  his  own  child  in  his  own  pet  way ; 
and  there  might  be  a  greater  number  of  children 
who  would  not  be  corrupted  at  all. 

Another  problem  which  might  be  advanced 
towards  a  solution  by  a  little  light  is  that  of 
giving  higher  education  to  those  who  want  it  but 
are  too  poor  to  pay.  There  are  certain  studies, 
called  above  the  social  disciplines,  which  help  a 
man  not  so  much  to  raise  himself  out  of  his  class 
and  become  a  snob,  as  to  get  a  better  under- 
standing of  himself  and  his  fellow-men.  Since 
mutual  understanding  is  a  hardly  exaggerable 
social  good,  why  should  not  a  way  be  found  to 
provide  for  all  who  wish  it  evening  instruction  in 
history,  sociology,  economics,  psychology,  biology, 
philosophy,  and  similar  fields  of  knowledge? 
Every  added  citizen  who  has  received  instruction 
in  these  matters  is  a  new  asset  to  the  community ; 
he  will  vote  with  more  intelligence,  he  will  work 
better  in  cooperation,  he  will  be  less  subject  to 
undulations  of  social  mania,  he  will  be  a  hint  to 
all  office-seekers  to  put  their  usual  nonsense  on 
the  shelf.  Perhaps  by  this  medium  too  our 
Society  would  spread  its  reports  and  widen  its 
influence.  Imagine  a  nation  of  people  instructed 
in  these  sciences :  with  such  a  people  civilization 
would  begin. 

And  then  again,  our  busy-body  Society  would 
turn  its  research  light  on  the  universities,  and  tell 
them  a  thing  or  two  of  what  the  light  would 


250      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

show.  It  would  betray  the  lack  of  coordination 
among  the  various  sciences,  —  the  department 
of  psychology,  for  example,  never  coming  to  so 
much  as  speaking  terms  with  the  department  of 
economics;  it  would  call  for  an  extension,  per- 
haps, of  the  now  infrequent  seminars  and  con- 
ferences between  departments  whose  edges  over- 
lap, or  which  shed  light  on  a  common  field.  It 
would  invite  the  university  to  give  less  of  its 
time  to  raking  over  the  past,  and  help  it  to  orient 
itself  toward  the  future ;  it  would  suggest  to  every 
university  that  it  provide  an  open  forum  for  the 
responsible  expression  of  all  shades  of  opinion; 
it  would,  in  general,  call  for  a  better  organization 
of  science  as  part  of  the  organization  of  intelli- 
gence ;  it  would  remind  the  universities  that  they 
are  more  vital  even  than  governments ;  and  it 
might  perhaps  succeed  in  getting  engraved  on 
the  gates  of  every  institution  of  learning  the  words 
of  Thomas  Hobbes :  "Seeing  the  universities  are 
the  foundation  of  civil  and  moral  doctrine,  from 
whence  the  preachers  and  the  gentry,  drawing 
such  water  as  they  find,  use  to  sprinkle  the  same 
upon  the  people,  there  ought  certainly  to  be 
great  care  taken  to  have  it  pure." 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   READER   SPEAKS 

I 
The  Democratization  of  Aristocracy 

And  now  we  stop  for  objections. 

"This  plan  is  a  hare-brained  scheme  for  a  new 
priesthood  and  a  new  aristocracy.  It  would  put 
a  group  of  college  professors  and  graduates  into  a 
position  where  they  could  do  almost  as  they 
please.  You  think  you  avoid  this  by  telling  the 
gentlemen  that  they  must  limit  themselves  to  the 
statement  of  fact;  but  if  you  knew  the  arts  of 
journalism  you  would  not  make  so  naive  a  dis- 
tinction between  airing  opinions  and  stating  facts. 
When  a  man  buys  up  a  newspaper  what  he  wants 
to  do  is  not  so  much  to  control  the  editorials  as 
to  '  edit '  the  news,  —  that  is,  to  select  the  facts 
which  shall  get  into  print.  It's  wonderful  what 
lies  you  can  spread  without  telling  lies.  For 
example,  if  you  want  to  hurt  a  public  man,  you 
quote  all  his  foolish  speeches  and  ignore  his  wise 
ones ;  you  put  his  mistakes  into  head-lines  and 
hide  his  achievements  in  a  corner.  I  will  guaran- 
tee to  prove  anything  I  like,  or  anything  I  don't 

251 


252      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

like,  just  by  stating  facts.  So  with  your  Society 
for  Social  Research ;  it  would  become  a  great 
political,  rather  than  an  educational,  organiza- 
tion ;  it  would  almost  unconsciously  select  its 
information  to  suit  its  hobbies.  Why,  the  thing 
is  psychologically  impossible.  If  you  want 
something  to  be  true  you  will  be  half  blind  and 
half  deaf  to  anything  that  obstructs  your  desire; 
that  is  the  way  we're  made.  And  even  if  nature 
did  not  attend  to  this,  money  would :  as  soon 
as  your  society  exercised  real  power  on  public 
opinion  it  would  be  bought  up,  in  a  gentle,  sleight- 
o'hand  way,  by  some  economic  group ;  a  few  of 
the  more  influential  members  of  the  Society  would 
be  'approached,'  some  'present'  would  be  made, 
and  justice  would  have  another  force  to  contend 
with.     No;  your  Society  won't  do." 

Well,  let  us  see.  Here  you  have  a  body  of 
5000  men;  rather  a  goodly  number  for  even  an 
American  millionaire  to  purchase.  They  wish  to 
investigate,  say,  the  problem  of  birth  control ; 
what  do  they  do?  They  vote,  without  nomi- 
nations, for  six  of  their  number  to  manage  the 
investigation ;  the  six  men  receiving  the  highest 
vote  investigate  and  write  out  a  report.  Now 
if  any  report  were  published  which  misstated 
facts,  or  omitted  important  items,  the  fault 
would  at  once  diminish  the  repute  and  influence 
of  the  Society.  Let  merely  the  suspicion  get 
about   that   these   reports   are   unfair,   and   the 


THE   READER   SPEAKS  253 

Society  would  begin  to  decay.  That  is,  the 
power  of  the  Society  would  grow  with  its  fairness 
and  fall  with  its  unfairness,  —  a  very  happy 
arrangement.  The  fear  of  this  fall  in  influence 
would  be  the  best  incentive  to  impartial  reports. 
Every  committee  would  feel  that  the  future  of 
the  Society  depended  on  the  fairness  of  its  own 
report ;  and  every  man  on  every  committee 
would  hesitate  before  making  himself  responsi- 
ble for  the  disrepute  of  the  Society;  he  would 
feel  himself  on  trial  before  his  fellow-members, 
and  would  halt  himself  in  the  natural  slide  into 
partiality. 

Not  that  he  would  always  succeed ;  men  are 
men.  But  it  is  reasonable  to  expect  that  men 
working  under  these  conditions  would  be  con- 
siderably more  impartial  than  the  average  news- 
paper. Again,  who  is  as  impartial  as  the  scien- 
tist? One  cannot  do  much  in  science  without  a 
stern  control  of  the  personal  equation ;  to  de- 
scribe protozoa,  for  example,  as  one  would  like 
them  to  be,  is  no  very  clever  way  of  attaining 
repute  in  protozoology.  This  is  not  so  true  in 
the  social  as  in  the  physical  sciences,  though  even 
in  this  new  field  scientific  fairness  and  accuracy 
are  rapidly  increasing.  One  can  get  more  reliable 
and  impartial  reports  of  an  industrial  situation, 
—  e.g.,  of  the  Colorado  troubles,  —  from  the 
scientific  investigators  than  from  either  side  to  the 
controversy.  The  very  deficiencies  of  the  student 
type  —  incapacity  for  decisions  or  for  effective 


254      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

methods  in  action  —  involve  a  compensatory 
grasp  of  understanding  and  impartiality  of  atti- 
tude. Our  best  guarantee  against  dishonesty  is 
not  virtue  but  intelligence,  and  our  Society  is 
supposed  to  be  a  sort  of  distilled  intelligence. 

That  the  scheme  savors  of  aristocracy  is  not 
to  its  discredit.  We  need  aristocracy,  in  the 
sense  of  better  methods  for  giving  weight  to 
superior  brains ;  we  need  a  touch  of  Plato  in  our 
democracy.  After  all,  the  essence  of  the  plan, 
as  we  have  said,  is  the  democratization  of  Plato 
and  Nietzsche  and  Carlyle;  the  intelligent  man 
gets  more  political  power,  but  only  through  the 
mechanism  of  democracy.  His  greater  power 
comes  not  by  his  greater  freedom  to  do  what  he 
pleases  despite  the  majority,  but  by  improved 
facilities  for  enlightening  and  converting  the 
majority.  Democracy,  ideally,  means  only  that 
the  aristocracy  is  periodically  elected  and  re- 
newed ;  and  this  is  a  plan  whereby  the  aristo- 
crats —  the  really  best  —  shall  be  more  clearly 
seen  to  be  so.  Furthermore,  the  plan  avoids  the 
great  defect  of  Plato's  scheme,  —  that  philoso- 
phers are  not  fitted  for  executive  and  administra- 
tive work,  that  those  skilled  to  see  are  very  sel- 
dom also  able  to  do.  Here  the  philosopher,  the 
man  who  gets  at  the  truth,  rules,  but  only 
indirectly,  and  without  the  burdens  of  office 
and  execution.  And  indeed  it  is  not  the  phi- 
losopher who  rules,  but  truth.  The  liberator  is 
made  king. 


THE  HEADER   SPEAKS  255 

II 

The  Professor  as  Buridan's  Ass 

"You  have  anticipated  my  objection,  and 
cleverly  twisted  it  into  an  argument.  But  that 
would  be  too  facile  an  escape ;  you  must  face 
more  squarely  the  fact  that  your  professors  are 
mere  intellectualist  highbrows,  incapable  of  under- 
standing the  real  issues  involved  in  our  social  war, 
and  even  more  incapable  pf  suggesting  practical 
ways  out.  The  more  you  look  the  more  you 
see;  the  more  you  see,  the  less  you  do.  You 
think  that  reflection  leaves  you  peace  of  mind  ;  it 
doesn't,  it  leaves  your  mind  in  pieces.  The  in- 
tellectual is  like  Dr.  Buridan's  ass  :  he  is  so  careful 
to  stand  in  the  middle  that  he  never  gives  a  word 
of  practical  advice,  for  fear  that  he  will  com- 
promise himself  and  fracture  a  syllogism.  The 
trouble  is  that  we  think  too  much,  not  too  little ; 
we  make  thinking  a  substitute  for  action.  Really, 
as  Rousseau  argued,  thinking  is  unnatural ;  what 
the  world  needs  is  men  who  can  make  up  their 
minds  and  then  march  on,  almost  in  blinders,  to 
a  goal.  We  know  enough,  we  know  too  much; 
and  surely  we  have  a  plethora  of  investigating 
committees.  A  committee  is  just  a  scientific 
way  of  doing  nothing.  Your  plan  would  flood 
the  country  with  committees  and  leave  courage 
buried  under  facts.  You  should  call  your  organi- 
zation a  Society  for  Talky-talk." 


256      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE   SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

The  only  flaw  in  this  argument  is  that  it  does 
not  touch  the  proposal.  What  is  suggested  is 
not  that  the  Society  take  action  or  make  pro- 
grammes, much  less  execute  them ;  we  ask  our  pro- 
fessors merely  to  do  for  a  larger  public,  and  more 
thoroughly  and  systematically,  what  we  are  glad 
to  have  them  do  for  a  small  number  of  us  in 
college  and  university.  Action  is  ex  hypothesi 
left  to  others ;  the  function  of  the  researcher  is 
quite  simply  to  look  and  tell  us  what  he  sees. 
That  he  is  a  highbrow,  an  intellectual,  and  even 
a  Buridan's  ass,  does  not  interfere  with  his  seeing ; 
nobody  ever  argued  that  Buridan's  ass  was 
blind. 

-  We  forget  that  seeing  is  itself  an  art.  Some  of 
us  have  specialized  in  the  art,  and  have  naturally 
failed  to  develop  cleverness  in  practical  affairs. 
But  that  does  not  mean  that  our  special  talent 
cannot  be  used  by  the  community,  any  more 
than  Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  fondness  for  celestial 
exploration  makes  us  reject  his  work  on  electricity. 
Thinking  is  itself  a  form  of  action,  and  not  the 
easiest  nor  the  least  effective.  It  is  true  that  "if 
you  reflect  too  much  you  will  never  accomplish 
anything,"  but  if  you  reflect  too  little  you  will 
accomplish  about  as  much.  We  make  headway 
only  by  the  head  way.  Action  without  fore- 
thought tends  to  follow  a  straight  line;  but  in 
life  the  straight  line  is  often  the  longest  distance 
between  two  points,  because,  as  Leonardo  said, 
the  straightest  line  offers  the  greatest  resistance. 


THE    READER   SPEAKS  257 

Thought  is  roundabout,  and  loves  flank  attacks. 
The  man  of  action  rushes  into  play  courageously, 
succeeds  now,  fails  then;  and  sooner  or  later 
wishes  —  if  he  lives  to  wish  —  that  he  could  think 
more.  The  increasing  dependence  of  industry  on 
scientific  research,  and  of  politics  on  expert  in- 
vestigators, shows  how  the  world  is  coming  to 
value  the  man  whose  specialty  is  seeing.  Faith 
in  intellect,  as  Santayana  says,  "is  the  only  faith 
yet  sanctioned  by  its  fruit."  x  The  two  most 
important  men  in  America  just  now  are,  or  have 
been,  college  professors.  To  speak  still  more 
boldly :  the  greatest  single  human  source  of  good 
in  our  generation  is  the  "intellectual"  researcher 
and  professor.  The  man  to  be  feared  above  all 
others  is  the  man  who  can  see. 

Ill 

Is  Information  Wanted? 

"But  your  whole  scheme  shows  a  very  amateur 
knowledge  of  human  nature.  You  seem  to  think 
you  can  get  people  interested  in  fact.  You 
can't;  fact  is  too  much  against  their  interest. 
If  the  facts  favor  their  wish,  they  are  interested ; 
if  not,  they  forget  them.  The  hardest  thing  in 
the  world  is  to  listen  to  truth  that  threatens  to 
frustrate  desire.  That  is  why  people  won't  listen 
to  your  reports,  unless  you  tell  them  what  they 
want  to  hear.     They  will  —  and  perhaps  excus- 

•  Reason  in  Common  Sense,  New  York,  1911,  p.  96. 
8 


258      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PKOBLEM 

ably  —  prefer  the  bioscope  to  your  embalmed 
statistics;  just  as  they  will  prefer  to  read  The 
Family  Herald  rather  than  the  subtleties  recom- 
mended by  the  Mutual  Admiration  Society  which 
you  would  make  out  of  our  men  of  letters.  You 
can  investigate  till  you  are  blue  in  the  face,  and 
all  you  will  get  out  of  it  won't  be  worth  the 
postage  stamps  you  use.  Public  opinion  doesn't 
follow  fact,  it  follows  desire;  people  don't  vote 
for  a  man  because  he  is  supported  by  'truth' 
but  because  he  promises  to  do  something  they 
like.  And  the  man  who  makes  the  biggest 
promises  to  the  biggest  men  will  get  office  ninety- 
nine  times  out  of  a  hundred,  no  matter  what  the 
facts  are.     What  counts  is  not  truth  but  money." 

This  is  the  basic  difficulty.  Is  it  worth  while 
to  spread  information?  Think  how  much  in- 
formation is  spread  every  week  in  Europe  and 
America ;  —  the  world  remaining  the  while  as 
"wicked"  as  it  probably  ever  was.  Public 
opinion  is  still,  it  seems,  as  Sir  Robert  Peel  de- 
scribed it  to  be :  "a  compound  of  folly,  weakness, 
prejudice,  wrong  feeling,  right  feeling,  obstinacy, 
and  newspaper  paragraphs,"  »  —  particularly  the 
paragraphs.  Once  we  thought  that  the  printing- 
press  was  the  beginning  of  democracy,  that 
Gutenberg  had  enfranchised  the  world.  Now  it 
appears  that  print  and  plutocracy  get  along  very 
well  together.     Nevertheless  the  hope  of  the  weak 

1  Quoted  by  Walter  Weyl,  The  New  Democracy,  p.  136. 


THE   READER   SPEAKS  259 

lies  in  numbers  and  in  information;  in  democ- 
racy and  in  print.  "The  remedy  for  the  abuses 
of  public  opinion  is  not  to  discredit  it  but  to  in- 
struct it."  1  The  cure  for  misstatements  is  better 
statements.  If  the  newspapers  are  used  to 
spread  falsehood  that  is  no  reason  why  news- 
papers should  not  be  used  to  spread  truth.  After 
all,  the  spread  of  information  has  done  many 
things,  —  killed  dogma,  sterilized  many  mar- 
riages, and  even  prevented  wars;  and  there  is 
no  reason  why  a  further  spread  may  not  do  more 
valuable  things  than  any  yet  done.  It  has  been 
said,  so  often  that  we  are  apt  to  admit  it  just  to 
avoid  its  repetition,  that  discussion  effects  noth- 
ing. But  indeed  nothing  else  effects  anything. 
Whatever  is  done  without  information  and  dis- 
cussion is  soon  undone,  must  be  soon  undone; 
all  that  bears  time  is  that  which  survives  the 
test  of  thought.  All  problems  are  at  last  prob- 
lems in  information :  to  find  out  just  how  things 
stand  is  the  only  finally  effective  way  of  getting 
at  anything. 

As  to  the  limited  number  of  persons  who 
would  be  reached  by  the  reports,  let  us  not  ask 
too  much.  There  is  no  pretence  here  that  the 
great  mass  of  the  people  would  be  reached;  no 
doubt  these  would  go  on  living  what  Wells  calls 
the  "normal  social  life."  But  these  people  do 
not  count  for  constructive  purposes ;  they  divide 
about  evenly  in  every  election.     The  men  who 

1  Ross,  Social  Control,  New  York,  1906,  p.  103. 


260      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

do  count  —  the  local  leaders,  the  clergymen,  the 
lecturers,  the  teachers,  the  union  officials,  the 
newspaper  men,  the  "agitators,"  the  arch-rebels 
and  the  arch-Tories,  —  all  these  men  will  be 
reached;  and  the  information  given  will 
strengthen  some  and  weaken  others,  and  so  play- 
its  effective  part  in  the  drama  of  social  change. 
Each  one  of  these  men  will  be  a  center  for  the 
further  distribution  of  information.  Imagine  a 
new  monthly  with  a  country-wide  circulation  of 
one  million  voters  (that  is,  a  general  circulation 
of  five  million) ;  would  such  a  periodical  have 
power  ?  —  would  not  millions  be  given  to  control 
it?  Well,  here  we  have  more  power,  because 
not  so  concentrated  in  a  few  editorial  hands,  not 
so  easily  purchaseable,  and  based  on  better  in- 
tellect and  repute.  The  money  that  would  be  paid 
at  any  time  for  the  control  of  a  periodical  of  such 
influence  would  finance  our  Society  for  many  years. 
It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  such  a  spread 
of  knowledge  as  is  here  suggested  would  do  noth- 
ing to  elevate  the  moral  and  political  life  of  the 
country.  Consider  the  increased  scrupulousness 
with  which  a  Congressman  would  vote  if  he  knew 
that  at  the  next  election  his  record  would  be 
published  in  cold  print  in  a  hundred  newspapers, 
over  the  name  of  the  Society  for  Social  Research. 
Consider  the  effect,  on  Congressional  appropria- 
tions for  public  buildings,  of  a  plain  statement  of 
the  population  and  size  of  the  towns  which  require 
such  colossal  edifices  for  their  mail.     Publicity, 


THE   READER   SPEAKS  261 

it  has  been  said,  is  the  only  cure  for  bad  motives. 
Consider  the  stimulus  which  such  reports  would 
give  to  political  discussion  everywhere.  Hardly 
a  dispute  occurs  which  is  not  based  upon  insuffi- 
cient acquaintance  with  the  facts;  here  would 
be  information  up  to  date,  ready  to  give  the  light 
which  dispels  the  heat.  Men  would  turn  to  these 
reports  all  the  more  willingly  because  the  reports 
were  pledged  to  confine  themselves  to  fact.  Men 
would  find  here  no  attacks,  no  argument,  no 
theory  or  creed ;  it  would  be  refreshing,  in  some 
ways,  to  bathe  the  mind,  hot  with  contention,  in 
these  cool  streams  of  fact,  and  to  emerge  cleansed 
of  error  and  filled  with  the  vitality  of  truth.  We 
have  spent  so  much  time  attacking  what  we  hate 
that  we  have  not  stopped  to  tell  people  what  we 
like ;  if  we  would  only  affirm  more  and  deny  less 
there  would  be  less  of  cross-purpose  in  the  world. 
And  information  is  affirmation.  It  would  not 
open  the  wounds  of  controversy  so  much  as  offer 
points  of  contact ;  and  in  the  light  of  fact,  enemies 
might  see  that  their  good  lay  for  the  most  part 
on  a  common  road.  If  you  want  to  change  a  foe 
into  a  friend  (or,  some  cynic  will  say,  a  friend 
into  a  foe),  give  him  information. 

IV 

Finding  Maecenas 

"Well;    suppose  you  are  right.     Suppose  in- 
formation, as  you  say,  is  king.     How  are  you  going 


262      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE   SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

to  do  it?  Do  you  really  think  you  will  get  some 
benevolent  millionaire  to  finance  you?  And  will 
you,  like  Fourier,  wait  in  your  room  every  day 
at  noon  for  the  man  who  will  turn  your  dream 
into  a  fact?" 

What  we  tend  to  forget  about  rich  men  is  that 
besides  being  rich  they  are  men.  There  are  a 
surprising  number  of  them  —  particularly  those 
who  have  inherited  money  —  who  are  eager  to 
return  to  the  community  the  larger  part  of  their 
wealth,  if  only  they  could  be  shown  a  way  of 
doing  it  which  would  mean  more  than  a  change 
of  pockets.  Merely  to  give  to  charity  is,  in 
Aristotle's  phrase,  to  pour  water  into  a  leaking 
cask.  What  such  men  want  is  a  way  of  increas- 
ing intelligence ;  they  know  from  hard  experi- 
ence that  in  the  end  intelligence  is  the  quality 
to  be  desired  and  produced.  They  have  spent 
millions,  perhaps  billions,  on  education ;  and  this 
plan  of  ours  is  a  plan  for  education.  If  it  is  what 
it  purports  to  be,  some  one  of  these  men  will  offer 
to  finance  it. 

And  not  only  one.  Let  the  beginnings  of  our 
Society  be  sober  and  efficient,  let  its  first  investi- 
gations be  thorough  and  intelligent,  let  its  initial 
reports  be  impartial,  succinct,  illuminating  and 
simple,  and  further  help  will  come  almost  unasked. 
After  a  year  of  honest  and  capable  work  our 
Society  would  find  itself  supported  by  rather  a 
group  of  men  than  by  one  man;    it  might  con- 


THE   READER   SPEAKS  263 

ceivably  find  itself  helped  by  the  state,  at  the 
behest  of  the  citizens.  What  would  prevent  a 
candidate  for  governor  from  declaring  his  inten- 
tion that  should  he  be  elected  he  would  secure 
an  annual  appropriation  for  our  Society  ?  —  and 
why  should  not  the  voters  be  attracted  by  such  a 
declaration  ?  Why  should  not  the  voters  demand 
such  a  declaration? 

Nor  need  we  fear  that  a  Society  so  helped  by 
the  rich  man  and  the  state  would  turn  into  but 
one  more  instrumentality  of  obstructionism.  Not 
that  such  an  organization  of  intelligence  would 
be  " radical"  :  the  words  "radical"  and  "conserv- 
ative" have  become  but  instruments  of  calumny, 
and  truth  slips  between  them.  But  in  the  basic 
sense  of  the  word  our  Society  would  be  extremely 
radical ;  for  there  is  nothing  so  radical,  so  revolu- 
tionary, as  just  to  tell  the  truth,  to  say  what  it 
is  you  see.  That  surely  is  to  go  to  the  radix 
of  the  thing.  And  truth  has  this  advantage, 
that  it  is  discriminately  revolutionary :  there  are 
some  things  old  to  which  truth  is  no  enemy, 
just  as  there  are  some  things  new  which  will  melt 
in  the  glare  of  fact.     Let  the  fact  say. 

This  is  the  final  faith :  that  truth  will  make 
us  free,  so  far  as  we  can  ever  be  free.  Let  the 
truth  be  published  to  the  world,  and  men  sepa- 
rated in  the  dark  will  see  one  another,  and  one 
another's  purposes,  more  clearly,  and  with  saner 
understanding  than  before.  The  most  disastrous 
thing  you  can  do  to  an  evil  is  to  describe  it.     Let 


264      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

truth  be  told,  and  the  parasite  will  lose  his  strength 
through  shame,  and  meanness  will  hide  its  face. 
Only  let  information  be  given  to  all  and  freely, 
and  it  will  be  a  cleansing  of  our  national  blood ; 
enmity  will  yield  to  open  and  honest  opposition, 
where  it  will  not  indeed  become  cooperation. 
All  we  need  is  to  see  better.     Let  there  be  light. 


The  Chance  of  Philosophy 

"One  more  objection  before  you  take  the 
money.  And  that  is :  What  on  earth  has  all  this 
to  do  with  philosophy?  I  can  understand  that 
to  have  economists  on  your  investigating  commit- 
tees, and  biologists,  and  psychologists,  and  histo- 
rians, would  be  sensible ;  but  what  could  a  philoso- 
pher do?  These  are  matters  for  social  science, 
not  for  metaphysics.  Leave  the  philosophers  out 
and  some  of  us  may  take  your  scheme  seriously." 

It  is  a  good  objection,  if  only  because  it  shows 
again  the  necessity  for  a  new  kind  of  philosopher. 
Merely  to  make  such  an  objection  is  to  reenforce 
the  indictment  brought  above  against  the  philoso- 
pher as  he  is.  But  what  of  the  philosopher  as  he 
might  be? 

What  might  the  philosopher  be  ? 

Well,  first  of  all,  he  would  be  a  living  man,  and 
not  an  annotator  of  the  past.  He  would  have 
grown  freely,  his  initial  spark  of  divine  fire  un- 


THE   READER   SPEAKS  265 

quenched  by  scholastic  inflexibilities  of  discipline 
and  study.  He  would  have  imbibed  no  sermons, 
but  his  splendid  curiosity  would  have  found  food 
and  encouragement  from  his  teachers.  He  would 
have  lived  in  and  learned  to  love  the  country  and 
the  city ;  he  would,  be  at  home  in  the  ploughed 
fields  as  well  as  in  the  centres  of  learning ;  he 
would  like  the  cleansing  solitude  of  the  woods 
and  yet  too  the  invigorating  bustle  of  the  city 
streets.  He  would  be  brought  up  on  Plato  and 
Thucydides,  Leonardo  and  Michelangelo,  Bacon 
and  Montaigne ;  he  would  study  the  civilization 
of  Greece  and  that  of  the  Renaissance  on  all 
sides,  joining  the  history  of  politics,  economics, 
and  institutions  with  that  of  science,  literature, 
and  philosophy ;  and  yet  he  would  find  time  to 
study  his  own  age  thoroughly.  He  would  be 
interested  in  life,  and  full  of  it ;  he  would  jump 
into  campaigns,  add  his  influence  carefully  to 
movements  he  thought  good,  and  help  make  the 
times  live  up  more  nearly  to  their  possibilities. 
He  would  not  shut  himself  up  forever  in  labora- 
tories, libraries,  and  lecture  rooms ;  he  would  live 
more  widely  than  that.  He  would  be  of  the 
earth  earthly,  of  the  world  worldly.  He  would 
not  talk  of  ideals  in  the  abstract  and  do  nothing 
for  them  in  the  concrete;  above  all  else  in  the 
world  he  would  abhor  the  kind  of  talk  that  is  a 
refuge  from  the  venture  and  responsibility  of 
action.  He  would  not  only  love  wisdom,  he 
would  live  it. 


266      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

But  we  must  not  make  our  ideal  philosopher 
too  repulsively  perfect.  Let  us  agree  at  least  to 
this,  that  a  man  who  should  know  the  social 
disciplines,  and  not  merely  one  science,  would  be 
of  help  in  some  such  business  as  we  have  been 
proposing;  and  if  we  suppose  that  he  has  not 
only  knowledge  but  wisdom,  that  his  acquaint- 
ance with  the  facts  of  science  is  matched  by  his 
knowledge  of  life,  that  through  fellowship  with 
genius  in  Greece  and  Florence  he  has  acquired 
a  fund  of  wisdom  which  needs  but  the  nourish- 
ment of  living  to  grow  richer  from  day  to  day,  — 
then  we  are  on  the  way  to  seeing  that  this  is  the 
sort  of  man  our  Society  would  need  above  all 
other  sorts  of  men.  Such  philosophers  would  be 
worthy  to  guide  research  and  direct  the  enlighten- 
ment of  the  world ;  such  philosophers  might  be 
to  their  generation  what  Socrates  and  Plato  were 
to  their  generations  and  Francis  Bacon  to  his ; 
such  a  philosophy,  in  Nietzsche's  words,  might 
rule ! 

This  is  the  chance  of  philosophy.  It  may  linger 
further  in  that  calm  death  of  social  ineffectiveness 
in  which  we  see  it  sinking ;  or  it  may  catch  the 
hands  of  the  few  philosophers  who  insist  on 
focusing  thought  on  life,  and  so  regain  the  posi- 
tion which  it  alone  is  fitted  to  fill.  Unless  that 
position  is  filled,  and  properly,  all  the  life  of  the 
world  is  zigzag  and  fruitless,  —  what  we  have 
called  the  logic-chopping  life ;  and  unless  that 
position  is  filled  philosophy  too  is  logic-chopping, 


THE   READER   SPEAKS  267 

zigzag,  and  fruitless,  and  turns  away  from  life 
men  whom  life  most  sorely  needs.  There  are 
some  among  us,  even  some  philosophers  among 
us,  who  are  eager  to  lead  the  way  out  of  bickering 
into  discussion,  out  of  criticism  into  construction, 
out  of  books  into  life.  We  must  keep  a  keen  eye 
for  such  men,  and  their  beginnings ;  and  we  must 
strengthen  them  with  our  little  help.  Philosophy 
is  too  divinely  splendid  a  thing  to  be  kept  from 
the  most  divine  of  things,  —  creation.  Some  of 
us  love  it  as  the  very  breath  of  our  lives ;  it  is 
our  vital  medium,  without  which  life  would  be 
less  than  vegetation ;  and  we  will  not  rest  so  long 
as  the  name  philosopher  means  anything  less 
aspiring  and  inspiring  than  it  did  with  Plato. 
Science  nourishes  and  philosophy  languishes,  be- 
cause science  is  honest  and  philosophy  syco- 
phantic, because  science  touches  life  and  helps  it, 
while  philosophy  shrinks  fearfully  and  helplessly 
away.  If  philosophy  is  to  live  again,  it  must  re- 
discover life,  it  must  come  back  into  the  cave, 
it  must  come  down  from  the  "real"  and  tran- 
scendental world  and  play  its  venturesome  part 
in  the  hard  and  happy  world  of  efforts  and  events. 
It  is  the  chance  of  philosophy. 


CONCLUSION 

See  now,  in  summary,  how  modest  a  suggestion 
it  is,  grandiloquent  though  it  may  have  seemed. 
We  propose  no  'ism,  we  make  no  programme ;  we 
suggest,  tentatively,  a  method.  We  propose  a 
new  start,  a  new  tack,  a  new  approach,  —  not  to 
the  exclusion  of  other  approaches,  but  to  their 
assistance.  If  this  thing  should  be  done,  it  would 
not  mean  that  other  gropers  toward  a  better 
world  would  have  to  stand  idle;  it  would  but 
give  light  to  them  that  walk  in  darkness.  And 
it  would  make  possible  a  more  generous  coopera- 
tion among  the  different  currents  in  the  stream 
of  reconstructive  thought. 

We  are  a  little  discouraged  to-day;  we  lovers 
of  the  new  have  become  doubtful  of  the  object 
of  our  love.  Perhaps  —  we  sometimes  feel  —  all 
this  effort  is  a  vain  circling  in  the  mist ;  perhaps 
we  do  not  advance,  but  only  move.  Our  faith 
in  progress  is  dimmed.  We  even  tire  of  the 
"social  problem" ;  we  have  tried  so  many  ways, 
knocked  at  so  many  doors,  and  found  so  little 
of  that  which  we  sought.  Sometimes,  in  the  las- 
situde of  mistaken  effort  and  drear  defeat,  we 
almost  think  that  the  social  problem  is  never  to 
find  even  partial  solution,  that  it  is  not  a  problem 

268 


CONCLUSION  269 

but  a  limitation,  a  limitation  forever.  We  need 
a  new  beginning,  a  new  impetus,  —  perhaps  a 
new  delusion? 

See,  too,  how  the  thought  of  our  five  teachers 
lies  concentrated  and  connected  in  this  new 
approach :  what  have  we  done  but  renew  con- 
cretely the  Socratic  plea  for  intelligence,  the  Pla- 
tonic hope  for  philosopher-kings,  Bacon's  dream 
of  knowledge  organized  and  ruling  the  world, 
Spinoza's  gentle  insistence  on  democracy  as  the 
avenue  of  development,  and  Nietzsche's  passion- 
ate defence  of  aristocracy  and  power?  There 
was  something  in  us  that  thrilled  at  Plato's  con- 
ception of  a  philosophy  that  could  guide  as  well 
as  dissect  our  social  life ;  but  there  was  another 
something  in  us  that  hesitated  before  his  plan  of 
slavery  as  the  basis  of  it  all.  We  felt  that  we 
would  rather  be  free  and  miserable  than  bound 
and  filled.  Why  should  a  man  feed  himself  if  his 
feet  are  chained,  and  he  must  never  move  ?  And 
we  were  inspired,  too,  by  the  demand  that  the 
best  should  rule,  that  they  should  have  power 
fitted  to  their  worth ;  we  should  be  glad  to  find 
some  way  whereby  the  best  could  have  power, 
could  rule,  and  yet  with  the  consent  of  all,  —  we 
wanted  an  aristocracy  sanctioned  by  democracy, 
a  social  order  standing  on  the  broad  base  of  free 
citizenship  and  wide  cooperation.  Socrates  shows 
us  how  to  use  Bacon  to  reconcile  Plato  and 
Nietzsche  with  Spinoza :  intelligence  will  organ- 
ize intelligence  so  that  superior  worth  may  have 


270      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

superior  influence  and  yet  work  with  and  through 
the  will  of  all. 

And  here  at  the  end  comes  a  thought  that 
some  of  us  perhaps  have  had  more  than  once  as 
this  discussion  advanced :  What  could  the 
Church  do  for  the  organization  of  intelligence? 

It  could  do  wonderful  things.  It  has  power, 
organization,  facilities,  through  which  the  gospel 
of  "the  moral  obligation  to  be  intelligent"  could 
be  preached  to  a  wider  audience  than  any  news- 
paper could  reach.  And  among  the  clergy  are 
hundreds  of  young  men  who  have  found  new 
inspiration  in  the  figure  of  Jesus  seen  through  the 
aspirations  of  democracy ;  hundreds  eager  to  do 
their  part  in  any  work  that  will  lessen  the  misery 
of  men.  What  if  they  were  to  find  in  this  organi- 
zation of  intelligence  a  focus  for  their  labor  ?  — 
what  if  they  should  not  only  themselves  under- 
take the  studies  which  would  fit  them  for  mem- 
bership in  the  Society,  but  should  also  make  it 
their  business  to  stir  up  in  all  who  might  come  to 
them  the  spirit  of  the  seeker,  to  incite  them  to 
read  religiously  the  reports  of  the  Society,  to  call 
on  them  to  spread  abroad  the  good  news  of  truth 
to  be  had  for  the  asking?  What  if  these  men 
should  make  their  churches  extension  centers  for 
the  educational  work  of  the  Society,  —  giving 
freely  the  use  of  their  halls  and  even  contributing 
to  the  expense  of  organizing  classes  and  paying 
for  skilled  instruction?    What  if  they  should  see 


CONCLUSION  271 

in  the  spread  of  intelligence  the  best  avenue  to 
that  wide  friendship  which  Jesus  so  passionately- 
preached?  What  better  way  is  there  to  make 
men  love  one  another  than  to  make  men  under- 
stand one  another?  True  charity  comes  only 
with  clarity,  —  just  as  "mercy"  is  but  justice 
that  understands.  Surely  the  root  of  all  evil  is 
the  inability  to  see  clearly  that  which  is ;  how 
better  can  religion  combat  evil  than  to  preach 
clarity  as  the  beginning  of  social  redemption? 

One  of  the  many  burdens  that  drag  on  the  soul 
is  a  knowledge  of  the  past.  It  is  a  strong  man 
who  can  know  history  and  keep  his  courage ;  a 
great  dream  that  can  face  the  fact  and  live.  We 
look  at  those  flitting  experiments  called  civiliza- 
tions :  we  see  them  rise  one  after  another,  we  see 
them  produce  and  produce  and  produce,  we  feel 
the  weight  of  their  accumulating  wealth ;  still 
visionable  to  us  the  busyness  of  geniuses  and 
slaves  piling  stone  upon  stone  and  making  pyra- 
mids to  greet  the  stars,  still  audible  the  voices  of 
Socrates  in  the  agora  and  of  old  Plato  passing 
quietly  among  the  students  in  the  grove,  still 
haunting  us  the  white  faces  of  martyrs  in  the 
amphitheatres  of  Rome :  and  then  the  pyramids 
stand  bare  and  lonely,  the  voices  of  Greek  genius 
are  hushed,  the  Colosseum  is  a  ruin  and  a  memory ; 
one  after  another  these  peoples  pass,  these  won- 
derful peoples,  greater  perhaps,  wiser  and  nobler 
perhaps,  than  the  peoples  of  our  time;    and  we 


272      PHILOSOPHY   AND   THE   SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

almost  choke  with  the  heavy  sense  of  a  vast 
futility  encompassing  the  world.  Some  of  us 
turn  away  then  from  the  din  of  effort,  and  seek 
in  resignation  the  comfort  of  a  living  death ; 
some  others  find  in  the  "doubt  and  difficulty  the 
zest  and  reward  of  the  work.  After  all,  the  past 
is  not  dead,  it  has  not  failed  ;  only  the  vileness  of 
it  is  dead,  gone  with  the  winnowing  of  time ;  that 
which  was  great  and  worthy  lives  and  works  and 
is  real.  Plato  speaks  to  us  still,  speaks  to  millions 
and  millions  of  us;  and  the  blood  of  martyrs  is 
the  seed  of  saints.  We  speak  and  pass,  but  the 
word  remains.  Effort  is  not  lost.  Not  to  have 
tried  is  the  only  failure,  the  only  misery;  all 
effort  is  happiness,  all  effort  is  success.  And  so 
again  we  write  ourselves  in  books  and  stone  and 
color,  and  smile  in  the  face  of  time ;  again  we  hear 
the  call  of  the  work,  that  it  be  done : 

Edens  that  wait  the  wizardry  of  thought, 
Beauty  that  craves  the  touch  of  artist  hands, 
Truth  that  but  hungers  to  be  felt  or  seen ; 

and  again  we  are  hot  with  the  passion  for  perfec- 
tion. We  will  remake.  We  will  wonder  and  de- 
sire and  dream  and  plan  and  try.  We  are  such 
beings  as  dream  and  plan  and  try ;  and  the  glory 
of  our  defeats  dims  the  splendor  of  the  sun.  We 
will  take  thought  and  add  a  cubit  to  our  stature ; 
we  will  bring  intelligence  to  the  test  and  call  it 
together  from  all  corners  of  the  earth ;  we  will 
harness  the  genius  of  the  race  and  renew  creation. 
We  will  remake. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  Amerioa. 


(HE  following  pages  contain  advertisements  of  a 
few  of  the  Macmillan  books  on  kindred  subjects. 


Poverty  and  Social  Progress 


By  MAURICE  PARMELEE,  Ph.D. 

Cloth,  crown  8vo,  477  pp.,  $i.go 

"Suitable  for  college  classes  as  well  as  for  the  general  reader, 
and  contains  a  great  mass  of  material  of  value  to  the  citizen  who 
really  wants  to  know." — Independent. 

"  A  very  competent  presentation  of  the  various  social  factors  that 
go  to  make  up  the  problem  of  poverty." —  Churchman. 

"  A  most  useful  and  educative  book.  It  would  be  well  if  every 
serious-minded  person  interested  in  social  welfare  would  read  this 
calm,  impartial  survey  of  the  problems  of  poverty,  and  learn  from 
it  that  poverty  is  not  a  spontaneous  phenomenon,  and  that  it  could 
be  practically  wiped  out  by  the  reorganization  of  society.  The  book 
is  offered  for  use  as  a  text  for  college  courses  on  charities,  poverty, 
pauperism,  dependency,  and  the  like,  but  its  most  useful  place  is  in  the 
hands  of  the  worker,  the  producer,  the  business  man  and  woman, 
the  serious  shapers  and  makers  of  the  present  economic  state  of 
society." — American  Review  of  Reviews. 

"  Promoters  of  the  democratic  and  humanitarian  movement  of 
our  time  will  find  this  volume  replete  with  valuable  data  and  stimu- 
lating to  close  and  careful  thinking.  Dr.  Parmelee  defines  social 
progress  as  advancement  toward  realization  of  a  normal  human  life 
for  all  mankind.  He  shows  this  obstructed  by  poverty  in  so  many 
ways  that  there  is  no  panacea  for  it,  and  a  variety  of  remedies  are 
requisite.  The  chief  obstructions  being  in  the  production  and  dis- 
tribution of  wealth,  his  discussion  centers  mainly  in  the  problems 
of  these."—  Outlook. 


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The  Great  Society 

A  Psychological  Analysis 
By  GRAHAM   WALLAS 

Author  of  "  Human  Nature  in  Politics  " 

Cloth,  crown  8vo,  383  pp.,  $2.00 

Graham  Wallas's  new  book,  "  The  Great  Society,"  will  be  equally 
interesting  to  the  psychologists,  students  of  sociology,  politics  and  the 
general  reader.  Mr.  Wallas  is  a  man  of  wide  connections  in  England, 
a  man  whose  experience  has  well  fitted  him  for  the  task  which  he  has 
essayed.  He  has  been  for  many  years  a  university  extension  lecturer; 
he  was  at  one  time  a  member  of  the  school-board  of  London,  chairman 
of  the  School  Management  Committee,  a  member  of  the  Technical 
Education  Board,  of  the  London  County  Council  and  of  the  Education 
Committee  of  that  council.  He  has  been,  since  1896,  a  lecturer  at  the 
London  School  of  Economics.  He  has  served  on  the  Senate  of  London 
University,  as  university  reader  in  political  science  and  on  the  Royal 
Commission  on  Civil  Service.  He  has  written  more  or  less  widely,  his 
most  popular  publication  being,  perhaps,  "  Human  Nature  in  Politics." 

The  present  work,  a  portion  of  which  was  delivered  last  winter  as  the 
Lowell  Lecture  in  Boston,  begins  with  an  exposition  of  what  the  author 
means  by  the  term  "  The  Great  Society."  It  then  proceeds  to  a  con- 
sideration of  the  following  topics:  Disposition,  Social  Psychology, 
Instinct  and  Intelligence,  Disposition  and  Environment,  Habit,  Fear, 
Pleasure,  Pain,  Happiness,  The  Psychology  of  the  Crowd,  Love  and 
Hatred,  Thought,  The  Organization  of  Thought,  The  Organization  of 
Will,  and  the  Organization  of  Happiness. 

"  His  deft  and  almost  subtle  grasp  of  the  viewpoints  of  the  philo- 
sophic factors  in  history ;  his  focusing  of  a  theory  into  the  tiny  sun- 
spot  of  an  illuminant  sentence,  and  adopting  a  style  that  is  as  inviting 
and  penetrating  as  Havelock  Ellis,  make  the  book  one  of  sustained 
interest."  —  Galveston  Daily  News. 


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The  Social  Problem 

A   CONSTRUCTIVE  ANALYSIS 

By  CHARLES  A.  ELLWOOD,  Ph.D. 

Professor  of  Sociology  in  the  University  of  Missouri,  Author  of  "Sociol- 
ogy in  Its  Psychological  Aspects,"  "Sociology  and  Modern  Social 

Problems,"  etc. 

Cloth,  i2tno,  255  pp.,  $1.25 

This  work  is  a  brief  analysis  of  the  social  problem  in  Western  civiliza- 
tion. It  outlines  a  scientific  social  philosophy  which  can  serve  as  a  basis 
for  a  well-balanced  progress.  The  author  points  out  that  the  present 
crisis  in  our  civilization  calls  for  a  reconstruction  of  our  social  philosophy; 
for  we  cannot  build  anew  the  structure  of  Western  society  upon  the  in- 
adequate bases  of  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  century  thought.  The  book 
indicates  the  direction  which  our  social  thinking  must  take  if  we  are  to 
avoid  revolution,  on  the  one  hand,  and  reaction,  on  the  other.  It  aims 
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commended  to  progressives  in  whatever  class,  party,  or  sect  they  may 
happen  to  find  themselves.  The  attitude  of  the  book  is  thoroughly  posi- 
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"  'The  Social  Problem'  by  Professor  Charles  A.  Ellwood  is  one  of  the 
best  books  of  the  kind  I  have  ever  seen.  The  subject  is  handled  in  a 
masterful  way.  The  best  books  I  read  in  my  field  ordinarily  do  not  gain 
more  than  eighty-five  or  ninety  per  cent  of  my  assent.  This  book,  how- 
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"It  is  not  only  sound  in  its  general  positions,  but  sound  in  details.  Every 
statement  is  guarded  and  weighty.  There  is  a  fine  sense  of  the  value  of 
words,  there  is  no  duplication,  and  the  author  reaches  his  goal  with  the 
fewest  possible  sentences.  I  know  of  no  book  upon  the  social  problem, 
which  can  command  so  completely  the  endorsement  of  social  thinkers 
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DATE  DUE 


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